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At breakfast hour the singer read The city news, with comment wise, Like one who felt the pulse of trade Beneath his finger fall and rise.
His look, his air, his curt speech, told The man of action, not of books, To whom the corners made in gold And stocks were more than seaside nooks.
Of life beneath the life confessed His song had hinted unawares; Of flowers in traffic's ledgers pressed, Of human hearts in bulls and bears.
But eyes in vain were turned to watch That face so hard and shrewd and strong; And ears in vain grew sharp to catch The meaning of that morning song.
In vain some sweet-voiced querist sought To sound him, leaving as she came; Her baited album only caught A common, unromantic name.
No word betrayed the mystery fine, That trembled on the singer's tongue; He came and went, and left no sign Behind him save the song he sung.
1874.
HAZEL BLOSSOMS.
The summer warmth has left the sky, The summer songs have died away; And, withered, in the footpaths lie The fallen leaves, but yesterday With ruby and with topaz gay.
The grass is browning on the hills; No pale, belated flowers recall The astral fringes of the rills, And drearily the dead vines fall, Frost-blackened, from the roadside wall.
Yet through the gray and sombre wood, Against the dusk of fir and pine, Last of their floral sisterhood, The hazel's yellow blossoms shine, The tawny gold of Afric's mine! Small beauty hath my unsung flower, For spring to own or summer hail; But, in the season's saddest hour, To skies that weep and winds that wail Its glad surprisals never fail.
O days grown cold! O life grown old No rose of June may bloom again; But, like the hazel's twisted gold, Through early frost and latter rain Shall hints of summer-time remain.
And as within the hazel's bough A gift of mystic virtue dwells, That points to golden ores below, And in dry desert places tells Where flow unseen the cool, sweet wells, So, in the wise Diviner's hand, Be mine the hazel's grateful part To feel, beneath a thirsty land, The living waters thrill and start, The beating of the rivulet's heart! Sufficeth me the gift to light With latest bloom the dark, cold days; To call some hidden spring to sight That, in these dry and dusty ways, Shall sing its pleasant song of praise.
O Love! the hazel-wand may fail, But thou canst lend the surer spell, That, passing over Baca's vale, Repeats the old-time miracle, And makes the desert-land a well.
1874.
SUNSET ON THE BEARCAMP.
A gold fringe on the purpling hem Of hills the river runs, As down its long, green valley falls The last of summer's suns.
Along its tawny gravel-bed Broad-flowing, swift, and still, As if its meadow levels felt The hurry of the hill, Noiseless between its banks of green From curve to curve it slips; The drowsy maple-shadows rest Like fingers on its lips.
A waif from Carroll's wildest hills, Unstoried and unknown; The ursine legend of its name Prowls on its banks alone.
Yet flowers as fair its slopes adorn As ever Yarrow knew, Or, under rainy Irish skies, By Spenser's Mulla grew; And through the gaps of leaning trees Its mountain cradle shows The gold against the amethyst, The green against the rose.
Touched by a light that hath no name, A glory never sung, Aloft on sky and mountain wall Are God's great pictures hung.
How changed the summits vast and old! No longer granite-browed, They melt in rosy mist; the rock Is softer than the cloud; The valley holds its breath; no leaf Of all its elms is twirled The silence of eternity Seems falling on the world.
The pause before the breaking seals Of mystery is this; Yon miracle-play of night and day Makes dumb its witnesses.
What unseen altar crowns the hills That reach up stair on stair?
What eyes look through, what white wings fan These purple veils of air?
What Presence from the heavenly heights To those of earth stoops down?
Not vainly Hellas dreamed of gods On Ida's snowy crown! Slow fades the vision of the sky, The golden water pales, And over all the valley-land A gray-winged vapor sails.
I go the common way of all; The sunset fires will burn, The flowers will blow, the river flow, When I no more return.
No whisper from the mountain pine Nor lapsing stream shall tell The stranger, treading where I tread, Of him who loved them well.
But beauty seen is never lost, God's colors all are fast; The glory of this sunset heaven Into my soul has passed, A sense of gladness unconfined To mortal date or clime; As the soul liveth, it shall live Beyond the years of time.
Beside the mystic asphodels Shall bloom the home-born flowers, And new horizons flush and glow With sunset hues of ours.
Farewell! these smiling hills must wear Too soon their wintry frown, And snow-cold winds from off them shake The maple's red leaves down.
But I shall see a summer sun Still setting broad and low; The mountain slopes shall blush and bloom, The golden water flow.
A lover's claim is mine on all I see to have and hold,-- The rose-light of perpetual hills, And sunsets never cold! 1876 THE SEEKING OF THE WATERFALL.
They left their home of summer ease Beneath the lowland's sheltering trees, To seek, by ways unknown to all, The promise of the waterfall.
Some vague, faint rumor to the vale Had crept--perchance a hunter's tale-- Of its wild mirth of waters lost On the dark woods through which it tossed.
Somewhere it laughed and sang; somewhere Whirled in mad dance its misty hair; But who had raised its veil, or seen The rainbow skirts of that Undine?
They sought it where the mountain brook Its swift way to the valley took; Along the rugged slope they clomb, Their guide a thread of sound and foam.
Height after height they slowly won; The fiery javelins of the sun Smote the bare ledge; the tangled shade With rock and vine their steps delayed.
But, through leaf-openings, now and then They saw the cheerful homes of men, And the great mountains with their wall Of misty purple girdling all.
The leaves through which the glad winds blew Shared the wild dance the waters knew; And where the shadows deepest fell The wood-thrush rang his silver bell.
Fringing the stream, at every turn Swung low the waving fronds of fern; From stony cleft and mossy sod Pale asters sprang, and golden-rod.
And still the water sang the sweet, Glad song that stirred its gliding feet, And found in rock and root the keys Of its beguiling melodies.
Beyond, above, its signals flew Of tossing foam the birch-trees through; Now seen, now lost, but baffling still The weary seekers' slackening will.
Each called to each: "Lo here! Lo there! Its white scarf flutters in the air!" They climbed anew; the vision fled, To beckon higher overhead.
So toiled they up the mountain-slope With faint and ever fainter hope; With faint and fainter voice the brook Still bade them listen, pause, and look.
Meanwhile below the day was done; Above the tall peaks saw the sun Sink, beam-shorn, to its misty set Behind the hills of violet.
"Here ends our quest!" the seekers cried, "The brook and rumor both have lied! The phantom of a waterfall Has led us at its beck and call." But one, with years grown wiser, said "So, always baffled, not misled, We follow where before us runs The vision of the shining ones.
"Not where they seem their signals fly, Their voices while we listen die; We cannot keep, however fleet, The quick time of their winged feet.
"From youth to age unresting stray These kindly mockers in our way; Yet lead they not, the baffling elves, To something better than themselves?
"Here, though unreached the goal we sought, Its own reward our toil has brought: The winding water's sounding rush, The long note of the hermit thrush, "The turquoise lakes, the glimpse of pond And river track, and, vast, beyond Broad meadows belted round with pines, The grand uplift of mountain lines! "What matter though we seek with pain The garden of the gods in vain, If lured thereby we climb to greet Some wayside blossom Eden-sweet?
"To seek is better than to gain, The fond hope dies as we attain; Life's fairest things are those which seem, The best is that of which we dream.
"Then let us trust our waterfall Still flashes down its rocky wall, With rainbow crescent curved across Its sunlit spray from moss to moss.
"And we, forgetful of our pain, In thought shall seek it oft again; Shall see this aster-blossomed sod, This sunshine of the golden-rod, "And haply gain, through parting boughs, Grand glimpses of great mountain brows Cloud-turbaned, and the sharp steel sheen Of lakes deep set in valleys green.
"So failure wins; the consequence Of loss becomes its recompense; And evermore the end shall tell The unreached ideal guided well.
"Our sweet illusions only die Fulfilling love's sure prophecy; And every wish for better things An undreamed beauty nearer brings.
"For fate is servitor of love; Desire and hope and longing prove The secret of immortal youth, And Nature cheats us into truth.
"O kind allurers, wisely sent, Beguiling with benign intent, Still move us, through divine unrest, To seek the loveliest and the best! "Go with us when our souls go free, And, in the clear, white light to be, Add unto Heaven's beatitude The old delight of seeking good!" 1878.
THE TRAILING ARBUTUS I wandered lonely where the pine-trees made Against the bitter East their barricade, And, guided by its sweet Perfume, I found, within a narrow dell, The trailing spring flower tinted like a shell Amid dry leaves and mosses at my feet.
From under dead boughs, for whose loss the pines Moaned ceaseless overhead, the blossoming vines Lifted their glad surprise, While yet the bluebird smoothed in leafless trees His feathers ruffled by the chill sea-breeze, And snow-drifts lingered under April skies.
As, pausing, o'er the lonely flower I bent, I thought of lives thus lowly, clogged and pent, Which yet find room, Through care and cumber, coldness and decay, To lend a sweetness to the ungenial day And make the sad earth happier for their bloom.
1879.
ST.

MARTIN'S SUMMER.
This name in some parts of Europe is given to the season we call Indian Summer, in honor of the good St.Martin.The title of the poem was suggested by the fact that the day it refers to was the exact date of that set apart to the Saint, the 11th of November.
Though flowers have perished at the touch Of Frost, the early comer, I hail the season loved so much, The good St.Martin's summer.
O gracious morn, with rose-red dawn, And thin moon curving o'er it! The old year's darling, latest born, More loved than all before it! How flamed the sunrise through the pines! How stretched the birchen shadows, Braiding in long, wind-wavered lines The westward sloping meadows! The sweet day, opening as a flower Unfolds its petals tender, Renews for us at noontide's hour The summer's tempered splendor.
The birds are hushed; alone the wind, That through the woodland searches, The red-oak's lingering leaves can find, And yellow plumes of larches.
But still the balsam-breathing pine Invites no thought of sorrow, No hint of loss from air like wine The earth's content can borrow.
The summer and the winter here Midway a truce are holding, A soft, consenting atmosphere Their tents of peace enfolding.
The silent woods, the lonely hills, Rise solemn in their gladness; The quiet that the valley fills Is scarcely joy or sadness.
How strange! The autumn yesterday In winter's grasp seemed dying; On whirling winds from skies of gray The early snow was flying.
And now, while over Nature's mood There steals a soft relenting, I will not mar the present good, Forecasting or lamenting.
My autumn time and Nature's hold A dreamy tryst together, And, both grown old, about us fold The golden-tissued weather.
I lean my heart against the day To feel its bland caressing; I will not let it pass away Before it leaves its blessing.
God's angels come not as of old The Syrian shepherds knew them; In reddening dawns, in sunset gold, And warm noon lights I view them.
Nor need there is, in times like this When heaven to earth draws nearer, Of wing or song as witnesses To make their presence clearer.
O stream of life, whose swifter flow Is of the end forewarning, Methinks thy sundown afterglow Seems less of night than morning! Old cares grow light; aside I lay The doubts and fears that troubled; The quiet of the happy day Within my soul is doubled.
That clouds must veil this fair sunshine Not less a joy I find it; Nor less yon warm horizon line That winter lurks behind it.
The mystery of the untried days I close my eyes from reading; His will be done whose darkest ways To light and life are leading! Less drear the winter night shall be, If memory cheer and hearten Its heavy hours with thoughts of thee, Sweet summer of St.Martin! 1880.
STORM ON LAKE ASQUAM.
A cloud, like that the old-time Hebrew saw On Carmel prophesying rain, began To lift itself o'er wooded Cardigan, Growing and blackening.

Suddenly, a flaw Of chill wind menaced; then a strong blast beat Down the long valley's murmuring pines, and woke The noon-dream of the sleeping lake, and broke Its smooth steel mirror at the mountains' feet.
Thunderous and vast, a fire-veined darkness swept Over the rough pine-bearded Asquam range; A wraith of tempest, wonderful and strange, From peak to peak the cloudy giant stepped.
One moment, as if challenging the storm, Chocorua's tall, defiant sentinel Looked from his watch-tower; then the shadow fell, And the wild rain-drift blotted out his form.
And over all the still unhidden sun, Weaving its light through slant-blown veils of rain, Smiled on the trouble, as hope smiles on pain; And, when the tumult and the strife were done, With one foot on the lake and one on land, Framing within his crescent's tinted streak A far-off picture of the Melvin peak, Spent broken clouds the rainbow's angel spanned.
1882.
A SUMMER PILGRIMAGE.
To kneel before some saintly shrine, To breathe the health of airs divine, Or bathe where sacred rivers flow, The cowled and turbaned pilgrims go.
I too, a palmer, take, as they With staff and scallop-shell, my way To feel, from burdening cares and ills, The strong uplifting of the hills.
The years are many since, at first, For dreamed-of wonders all athirst, I saw on Winnipesaukee fall The shadow of the mountain wall.
Ah! where are they who sailed with me The beautiful island-studded sea?
And am I he whose keen surprise Flashed out from such unclouded eyes?
Still, when the sun of summer burns, My longing for the hills returns; And northward, leaving at my back The warm vale of the Merrimac, I go to meet the winds of morn, Blown down the hill-gaps, mountain-born, Breathe scent of pines, and satisfy The hunger of a lowland eye.
Again I see the day decline Along a ridged horizon line; Touching the hill-tops, as a nun Her beaded rosary, sinks the sun.
One lake lies golden, which shall soon Be silver in the rising moon; And one, the crimson of the skies And mountain purple multiplies.
With the untroubled quiet blends The distance-softened voice of friends; The girl's light laugh no discord brings To the low song the pine-tree sings; And, not unwelcome, comes the hail Of boyhood from his nearing sail.
The human presence breaks no spell, And sunset still is miracle! Calm as the hour, methinks I feel A sense of worship o'er me steal; Not that of satyr-charming Pan, No cult of Nature shaming man, Not Beauty's self, but that which lives And shines through all the veils it weaves,-- Soul of the mountain, lake, and wood, Their witness to the Eternal Good! And if, by fond illusion, here The earth to heaven seems drawing near, And yon outlying range invites To other and serener heights, Scarce hid behind its topmost swell, The shining Mounts Delectable A dream may hint of truth no less Than the sharp light of wakefulness.
As through her vale of incense smoke.
Of old the spell-rapt priestess spoke, More than her heathen oracle, May not this trance of sunset tell That Nature's forms of loveliness Their heavenly archetypes confess, Fashioned like Israel's ark alone From patterns in the Mount made known?
A holier beauty overbroods These fair and faint similitudes; Yet not unblest is he who sees Shadows of God's realities, And knows beyond this masquerade Of shape and color, light and shade, And dawn and set, and wax and wane, Eternal verities remain.
O gems of sapphire, granite set! O hills that charmed horizons fret I know how fair your morns can break, In rosy light on isle and lake; How over wooded slopes can run The noonday play of cloud and sun, And evening droop her oriflamme Of gold and red in still Asquam.
The summer moons may round again, And careless feet these hills profane; These sunsets waste on vacant eyes The lavish splendor of the skies; Fashion and folly, misplaced here, Sigh for their natural atmosphere, And travelled pride the outlook scorn Of lesser heights than Matterhorn.
But let me dream that hill and sky Of unseen beauty prophesy; And in these tinted lakes behold The trailing of the raiment fold Of that which, still eluding gaze, Allures to upward-tending ways, Whose footprints make, wherever found, Our common earth a holy ground.
1883.
SWEET FERN.
The subtle power in perfume found Nor priest nor sibyl vainly learned; On Grecian shrine or Aztec mound No censer idly burned.
That power the old-time worships knew, The Corybantes' frenzied dance, The Pythian priestess swooning through The wonderland of trance.
And Nature holds, in wood and field, Her thousand sunlit censers still; To spells of flower and shrub we yield Against or with our will.
I climbed a hill path strange and new With slow feet, pausing at each turn; A sudden waft of west wind blew The breath of the sweet fern.
That fragrance from my vision swept The alien landscape; in its stead, Up fairer hills of youth I stepped, As light of heart as tread.
I saw my boyhood's lakelet shine Once more through rifts of woodland shade; I knew my river's winding line By morning mist betrayed.
With me June's freshness, lapsing brook, Murmurs of leaf and bee, the call Of birds, and one in voice and look In keeping with them all.
A fern beside the way we went She plucked, and, smiling, held it up, While from her hand the wild, sweet scent I drank as from a cup.
O potent witchery of smell! The dust-dry leaves to life return, And she who plucked them owns the spell And lifts her ghostly fern.
Or sense or spirit?
Who shall say What touch the chord of memory thrills?
It passed, and left the August day Ablaze on lonely hills.
THE WOOD GIANT From Alton Bay to Sandwich Dome, From Mad to Saco river, For patriarchs of the primal wood We sought with vain endeavor.
And then we said: "The giants old Are lost beyond retrieval; This pygmy growth the axe has spared Is not the wood primeval.
"Look where we will o'er vale and hill, How idle are our searches For broad-girthed maples, wide-limbed oaks, Centennial pines and birches.
"Their tortured limbs the axe and saw Have changed to beams and trestles; They rest in walls, they float on seas, They rot in sunken vessels.
"This shorn and wasted mountain land Of underbrush and boulder,-- Who thinks to see its full-grown tree Must live a century older." At last to us a woodland path, To open sunset leading, Revealed the Anakim of pines Our wildest wish exceeding.
Alone, the level sun before; Below, the lake's green islands; Beyond, in misty distance dim, The rugged Northern Highlands.
Dark Titan on his Sunset Hill Of time and change defiant How dwarfed the common woodland seemed, Before the old-time giant! What marvel that, in simpler days Of the world's early childhood, Men crowned with garlands, gifts, and praise Such monarchs of the wild-wood?
That Tyrian maids with flower and song Danced through the hill grove's spaces, And hoary-bearded Druids found In woods their holy places?
With somewhat of that Pagan awe With Christian reverence blending, We saw our pine-tree's mighty arms Above our heads extending.
We heard his needles' mystic rune, Now rising, and now dying, As erst Dodona's priestess heard The oak leaves prophesying.
Was it the half-unconscious moan Of one apart and mateless, The weariness of unshared power, The loneliness of greatness?
O dawns and sunsets, lend to him Your beauty and your wonder! Blithe sparrow, sing thy summer song His solemn shadow under! Play lightly on his slender keys, O wind of summer, waking For hills like these the sound of seas On far-off beaches breaking, And let the eagle and the crow Find shelter in his branches, When winds shake down his winter snow In silver avalanches.
The brave are braver for their cheer, The strongest need assurance, The sigh of longing makes not less The lesson of endurance.
1885.
A DAY.
Talk not of sad November, when a day Of warm, glad sunshine fills the sky of noon, And a wind, borrowed from some morn of June, Stirs the brown grasses and the leafless spray.
On the unfrosted pool the pillared pines Lay their long shafts of shadow: the small rill, Singing a pleasant song of summer still, A line of silver, down the hill-slope shines.
Hushed the bird-voices and the hum of bees, In the thin grass the crickets pipe no more; But still the squirrel hoards his winter store, And drops his nut-shells from the shag-bark trees.
Softly the dark green hemlocks whisper: high Above, the spires of yellowing larches show, Where the woodpecker and home-loving crow And jay and nut-hatch winter's threat defy.
O gracious beauty, ever new and old! O sights and sounds of nature, doubly dear When the low sunshine warns the closing year Of snow-blown fields and waves of Arctic cold! Close to my heart I fold each lovely thing The sweet day yields; and, not disconsolate, With the calm patience of the woods I wait For leaf and blossom when God gives us Spring! 29th, Eleventh Month, 1886.
POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT MEMORIES A beautiful and happy girl, With step as light as summer air, Eyes glad with smiles, and brow of pearl, Shadowed by many a careless curl Of unconfined and flowing hair; A seeming child in everything, Save thoughtful brow and ripening charms, As Nature wears the smile of Spring When sinking into Summer's arms.
A mind rejoicing in the light Which melted through its graceful bower, Leaf after leaf, dew-moist and bright, And stainless in its holy white, Unfolding like a morning flower A heart, which, like a fine-toned lute, With every breath of feeling woke, And, even when the tongue was mute, From eye and lip in music spoke.
How thrills once more the lengthening chain Of memory, at the thought of thee! Old hopes which long in dust have lain Old dreams, come thronging back again, And boyhood lives again in me; I feel its glow upon my cheek, Its fulness of the heart is mine, As when I leaned to hear thee speak, Or raised my doubtful eye to thine.
I hear again thy low replies, I feel thy arm within my own, And timidly again uprise The fringed lids of hazel eyes, With soft brown tresses overblown.
Ah! memories of sweet summer eves, Of moonlit wave and willowy way, Of stars and flowers, and dewy leaves, And smiles and tones more dear than they! Ere this, thy quiet eye hath smiled My picture of thy youth to see, When, half a woman, half a child, Thy very artlessness beguiled, And folly's self seemed wise in thee; I too can smile, when o'er that hour The lights of memory backward stream, Yet feel the while that manhood's power Is vainer than my boyhood's dream.
Years have passed on, and left their trace, Of graver care and deeper thought; And unto me the calm, cold face Of manhood, and to thee the grace Of woman's pensive beauty brought.
More wide, perchance, for blame than praise, The school-boy's humble name has flown; Thine, in the green and quiet ways Of unobtrusive goodness known.
And wider yet in thought and deed Diverge our pathways, one in youth; Thine the Genevan's sternest creed, While answers to my spirit's need The Derby dalesman's simple truth.
For thee, the priestly rite and prayer, And holy day, and solemn psalm; For me, the silent reverence where My brethren gather, slow and calm.
Yet hath thy spirit left on me An impress Time has worn not out, And something of myself in thee, A shadow from the past, I see, Lingering, even yet, thy way about; Not wholly can the heart unlearn That lesson of its better hours, Not yet has Time's dull footstep worn To common dust that path of flowers.
Thus, while at times before our eyes The shadows melt, and fall apart, And, smiling through them, round us lies The warm light of our morning skies,-- The Indian Summer of the heart! In secret sympathies of mind, In founts of feeling which retain Their pure, fresh flow, we yet may find Our early dreams not wholly vain 1841.
RAPHAEL.
Suggested by the portrait of Raphael, at the age of fifteen.
I shall not soon forget that sight The glow of Autumn's westering day, A hazy warmth, a dreamy light, On Raphael's picture lay.
It was a simple print I saw, The fair face of a musing boy; Yet, while I gazed, a sense of awe Seemed blending with my joy.
A simple print,--the graceful flow Of boyhood's soft and wavy hair, And fresh young lip and cheek, and brow Unmarked and clear, were there.
Yet through its sweet and calm repose I saw the inward spirit shine; It was as if before me rose The white veil of a shrine.
As if, as Gothland's sage has told, The hidden life, the man within, Dissevered from its frame and mould, By mortal eye were seen.
Was it the lifting of that eye, The waving of that pictured hand?
Loose as a cloud-wreath on the sky, I saw the walls expand.
The narrow room had vanished,--space, Broad, luminous, remained alone, Through which all hues and shapes of grace And beauty looked or shone.
Around the mighty master came The marvels which his pencil wrought, Those miracles of power whose fame Is wide as human thought.
There drooped thy more than mortal face, O Mother, beautiful and mild Enfolding in one dear embrace Thy Saviour and thy Child! The rapt brow of the Desert John; The awful glory of that day When all the Father's brightness shone Through manhood's veil of clay.
And, midst gray prophet forms, and wild Dark visions of the days of old, How sweetly woman's beauty smiled Through locks of brown and gold! There Fornarina's fair young face Once more upon her lover shone, Whose model of an angel's grace He borrowed from her own.
Slow passed that vision from my view, But not the lesson which it taught; The soft, calm shadows which it threw Still rested on my thought: The truth, that painter, bard, and sage, Even in Earth's cold and changeful clime, Plant for their deathless heritage The fruits and flowers of time.
We shape ourselves the joy or fear Of which the coming life is made, And fill our Future's atmosphere With sunshine or with shade.
The tissue of the Life to be We weave with colors all our own, And in the field of Destiny We reap as we have sown.
Still shall the soul around it call The shadows which it gathered here, And, painted on the eternal wall, The Past shall reappear.
Think ye the notes of holy song On Milton's tuneful ear have died?
Think ye that Raphael's angel throng Has vanished from his side?
Oh no!--We live our life again; Or warmly touched, or coldly dim, The pictures of the Past remain,--- Man's works shall follow him! 1842.
EGO.
WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM OF A FRIEND.
On page of thine I cannot trace The cold and heartless commonplace, A statue's fixed and marble grace.
For ever as these lines I penned, Still with the thought of thee will blend That of some loved and common friend, Who in life's desert track has made His pilgrim tent with mine, or strayed Beneath the same remembered shade.
And hence my pen unfettered moves In freedom which the heart approves, The negligence which friendship loves.
And wilt thou prize my poor gift less For simple air and rustic dress, And sign of haste and carelessness?
Oh, more than specious counterfeit Of sentiment or studied wit, A heart like thine should value it.
Yet half I fear my gift will be Unto thy book, if not to thee, Of more than doubtful courtesy.
A banished name from Fashion's sphere, A lay unheard of Beauty's ear, Forbid, disowned,--what do they here?
Upon my ear not all in vain Came the sad captive's clanking chain, The groaning from his bed of pain.
And sadder still, I saw the woe Which only wounded spirits know When Pride's strong footsteps o'er them go.
Spurned not alone in walks abroad, But from the temples of the Lord Thrust out apart, like things abhorred.
Deep as I felt, and stern and strong, In words which Prudence smothered long, My soul spoke out against the wrong; Not mine alone the task to speak Of comfort to the poor and weak, And dry the tear on Sorrow's cheek; But, mingled in the conflict warm, To pour the fiery breath of storm Through the harsh trumpet of Reform; To brave Opinion's settled frown, From ermined robe and saintly gown, While wrestling reverenced Error down.
Founts gushed beside my pilgrim way, Cool shadows on the greensward lay, Flowers swung upon the bending spray.
And, broad and bright, on either hand, Stretched the green slopes of Fairy-land, With Hope's eternal sunbow spanned; Whence voices called me like the flow, Which on the listener's ear will grow, Of forest streamlets soft and low.
And gentle eyes, which still retain Their picture on the heart and brain, Smiled, beckoning from that path of pain.
In vain! nor dream, nor rest, nor pause Remain for him who round him draws The battered mail of Freedom's cause.
From youthful hopes, from each green spot Of young Romance, and gentle Thought, Where storm and tumult enter not; From each fair altar, where belong The offerings Love requires of Song In homage to her bright-eyed throng; With soul and strength, with heart and hand, I turned to Freedom's struggling band, To the sad Helots of our land.
What marvel then that Fame should turn Her notes of praise to those of scorn; Her gifts reclaimed, her smiles withdrawn?
What matters it?
a few years more, Life's surge so restless heretofore Shall break upon the unknown shore! In that far land shall disappear The shadows which we follow here, The mist-wreaths of our atmosphere! Before no work of mortal hand, Of human will or strength expand The pearl gates of the Better Land; Alone in that great love which gave Life to the sleeper of the grave, Resteth the power to seek and save.
Yet, if the spirit gazing through The vista of the past can view One deed to Heaven and virtue true; If through the wreck of wasted powers, Of garlands wreathed from Folly's bowers, Of idle aims and misspent hours, The eye can note one sacred spot By Pride and Self profaned not, A green place in the waste of thought, Where deed or word hath rendered less The sum of human wretchedness, And Gratitude looks forth to bless; The simple burst of tenderest feeling From sad hearts worn by evil-dealing, For blessing on the hand of healing; Better than Glory's pomp will be That green and blessed spot to me, A palm-shade in Eternity! Something of Time which may invite The purified and spiritual sight To rest on with a calm delight.
And when the summer winds shall sweep With their light wings my place of sleep, And mosses round my headstone creep; If still, as Freedom's rallying sign, Upon the young heart's altars shine The very fires they caught from mine; If words my lips once uttered still, In the calm faith and steadfast will Of other hearts, their work fulfil; Perchance with joy the soul may learn These tokens, and its eye discern The fires which on those altars burn; A marvellous joy that even then, The spirit hath its life again, In the strong hearts of mortal men.
Take, lady, then, the gift I bring, No gay and graceful offering, No flower-smile of the laughing spring.
Midst the green buds of Youth's fresh May, With Fancy's leaf-enwoven bay, My sad and sombre gift I lay.
And if it deepens in thy mind A sense of suffering human-kind,-- The outcast and the spirit-blind; Oppressed and spoiled on every side, By Prejudice, and Scorn, and Pride, Life's common courtesies denied; Sad mothers mourning o'er their trust, Children by want and misery nursed, Tasting life's bitter cup at first; If to their strong appeals which come From fireless hearth, and crowded room, And the close alley's noisome gloom,-- Though dark the hands upraised to thee In mute beseeching agony, Thou lend'st thy woman's sympathy; Not vainly on thy gentle shrine, Where Love, and Mirth, and Friendship twine Their varied gifts, I offer mine.
1843.
THE PUMPKIN.
Oh, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun, The vines of the gourd and the rich melon run, And the rock and the tree and the cottage enfold, With broad leaves all greenness and blossoms all gold, Like that which o'er Nineveh's prophet once grew, While he waited to know that his warning was true, And longed for the storm-cloud, and listened in vain For the rush of the whirlwind and red fire-rain.
On the banks of the Xenil the dark Spanish maiden Comes up with the fruit of the tangled vine laden; And the Creole of Cuba laughs out to behold Through orange-leaves shining the broad spheres of gold; Yet with dearer delight from his home in the North, On the fields of his harvest the Yankee looks forth, Where crook-necks are coiling and yellow fruit shines, And the sun of September melts down on his vines.
Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West, From North and from South come the pilgrim and guest, When the gray-haired New-Englander sees round his board The old broken links of affection restored, When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more, And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before, What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye?
What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie?
Oh, fruit loved of boyhood! the old days recalling, When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling! When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin, Glaring out through the dark with a candle within! When we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts all in tune, Our chair a broad pumpkin,--our lantern the moon, Telling tales of the fairy who travelled like steam, In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team Then thanks for thy present! none sweeter or better E'er smoked from an oven or circled a platter! Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine, Brighter eyes never watched o'er its baking, than thine! And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express, Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less, That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below, And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow, And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky Golden-tinted and fair as thy own Pumpkin pie! 1844.
FORGIVENESS.
My heart was heavy, for its trust had been Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong; So, turning gloomily from my fellow-men, One summer Sabbath day I strolled among The green mounds of the village burial-place; Where, pondering how all human love and hate Find one sad level; and how, soon or late, Wronged and wrongdoer, each with meekened face, And cold hands folded over a still heart, Pass the green threshold of our common grave, Whither all footsteps tend, whence none depart, Awed for myself, and pitying my race, Our common sorrow, like a nighty wave, Swept all my pride away, and trembling I forgave! 1846.
TO MY SISTER, WITH A COPY OF "THE SUPERNATURALISM OF NEW ENGLAND." The work referred to was a series of papers under this title, contributed to the Democratic Review and afterward collected into a volume, in which I noted some of the superstitions and folklore prevalent in New England.