A wild and broken landscape, spiked with firs,
     Roughening the bleak horizon's northern edge;
     Steep, cavernous hillsides, where black hemlock
     spurs
     And sharp, gray splinters of the wind-swept
     ledge
     Pierced the thin-glazed ice, or bristling rose,
     Where the cold rim of the sky sunk down upon
     the snows.

     And eastward cold, wide marshes stretched away,
     Dull, dreary flats without a bush or tree,
     O'er-crossed by icy creeks, where twice a day
     Gurgled the waters of the moon-struck sea;
     And faint with distance came the stifled roar,
     The melancholy lapse of waves on that low shore.

     No cheerful village with its mingling smokes,
     No laugh of children wrestling in the snow,
     No camp-fire blazing through the hillside oaks,
     No fishers kneeling on the ice below;
     Yet midst all desolate things of sound and view,
     Through the long winter moons smiled dark-eyed
     Weetamoo.

     Her heart had found a home; and freshly all
     Its beautiful affections overgrew
     Their rugged prop. As o'er some granite wall
     Soft vine-leaves open to the moistening dew
     And warm bright sun, the love of that young wife
     Found on a hard cold breast the dew and warmth
     of life.

     The steep, bleak hills, the melancholy shore,
     The long, dead level of the marsh between,
     A coloring of unreal beauty wore
     Through the soft golden mist of young love seen.
     For o'er those hills and from that dreary plain,
     Nightly she welcomed home her hunter chief again.

     No warmth of heart, no passionate burst of feeling,
     Repaid her welcoming smile and parting kiss,
     No fond and playful dalliance half concealing,
     Under the guise of mirth, its tenderness;

     But, in their stead, the warrior's settled pride,
     And vanity's pleased smile with homage satisfied.

     Enough for Weetamoo, that she alone
     Sat on his mat and slumbered at his side;
     That he whose fame to her young ear had flown
     Now looked upon her proudly as his bride;
     That he whose name the Mohawk trembling heard
     Vouchsafed to her at times a kindly look or word.

     For she had learned the maxims of her race,
     Which teach the woman to become a slave,
     And feel herself the pardonless disgrace
     Of love's fond weakness in the wise and brave,—
     The scandal and the shame which they incur,
     Who give to woman all which man requires of her.

     So passed the winter moons. The sun at last
     Broke link by link the frost chain of the rills,
     And the warm breathings of the southwest passed
     Over the hoar rime of the Saugus hills;
     The gray and desolate marsh grew green once more,
     And the birch-tree's tremulous shade fell round the
     Sachem's door.

     Then from far Pennacook swift runners came,
     With gift and greeting for the Saugus chief;
     Beseeching him in the great Sachem's name,
     That, with the coming of the flower and leaf,
     The song of birds, the warm breeze and the rain,
     Young Weetamoo might greet her lonely sire again.

     And Winnepurkit called his chiefs together,
     And a grave council in his wigwam met,
     Solemn and brief in words, considering whether
     The rigid rules of forest etiquette
     Permitted Weetamoo once more to look
     Upon her father's face and green-banked
     Pennacook.

     With interludes of pipe-smoke and strong water,
     The forest sages pondered, and at length,
     Concluded in a body to escort her
     Up to her father's home of pride and strength,
     Impressing thus on Pennacook a sense
     Of Winnepurkit's power and regal consequence.

     So through old woods which Aukeetamit's hand,
     A soft and many-shaded greenness lent,
     Over high breezy hills, and meadow land
     Yellow with flowers, the wild procession went,
     Till, rolling down its wooded banks between,
     A broad, clear, mountain stream, the Merrimac
     was seen.

     The hunter leaning on his bow undrawn,
     The fisher lounging on the pebbled shores,
     Squaws in the clearing dropping the seed-corn,
     Young children peering through the wigwam doors,
     Saw with delight, surrounded by her train
     Of painted Saugus braves, their Weetamoo again.

     The hills are dearest which our childish feet
     Have climbed the earliest; and the streams most sweet
     Are ever those at which our young lips drank,
     Stooped to their waters o'er the grassy bank.

     Midst the cold dreary sea-watch, Home's hearth-light
     Shines round the helmsman plunging through the night;
     And still, with inward eye, the traveller sees
     In close, dark, stranger streets his native trees.

     The home-sick dreamer's brow is nightly fanned
     By breezes whispering of his native land,
     And on the stranger's dim and dying eye
     The soft, sweet pictures of his childhood lie.

     Joy then for Weetamoo, to sit once more
     A child upon her father's wigwam floor!
     Once more with her old fondness to beguile
     From his cold eye the strange light of a smile.

     The long, bright days of summer swiftly passed,
     The dry leaves whirled in autumn's rising blast,
     And evening cloud and whitening sunrise rime
     Told of the coming of the winter-time.

     But vainly looked, the while, young Weetamoo,
     Down the dark river for her chief's canoe;
     No dusky messenger from Saugus brought
     The grateful tidings which the young wife sought.

     At length a runner from her father sent,
     To Winnepurkit's sea-cooled wigwam went
     "Eagle of Saugus,—in the woods the dove
     Mourns for the shelter of thy wings of love."

     But the dark chief of Saugus turned aside
     In the grim anger of hard-hearted pride;
     "I bore her as became a chieftain's daughter,
     Up to her home beside the gliding water.

     If now no more a mat for her is found
     Of all which line her father's wigwam round,
     Let Pennacook call out his warrior train,
     And send her back with wampum gifts again."

     The baffled runner turned upon his track,
     Bearing the words of Winnepurkit back.
     "Dog of the Marsh," cried Pennacook, "no more
     Shall child of mine sit on his wigwam floor.

     "Go, let him seek some meaner squaw to spread
     The stolen bear-skin of his beggar's bed;
     Son of a fish-hawk! let him dig his clams
     For some vile daughter of the Agawams,

     "Or coward Nipmucks! may his scalp dry black
     In Mohawk smoke, before I send her back."
     He shook his clenched hand towards the ocean wave,
     While hoarse assent his listening council gave.

     Alas poor bride! can thy grim sire impart
     His iron hardness to thy woman's heart?
     Or cold self-torturing pride like his atone
     For love denied and life's warm beauty flown?

     On Autumn's gray and mournful grave the snow
     Hung its white wreaths; with stifled voice and low
     The river crept, by one vast bridge o'er-crossed,
     Built by the boar-locked artisan of Frost.

     And many a moon in beauty newly born
     Pierced the red sunset with her silver horn,
     Or, from the east, across her azure field
     Rolled the wide brightness of her full-orbed shield.

     Yet Winnepurkit came not,—on the mat
     Of the scorned wife her dusky rival sat;
     And he, the while, in Western woods afar,
     Urged the long chase, or trod the path of war.

     Dry up thy tears, young daughter of a chief!
     Waste not on him the sacredness of grief;
     Be the fierce spirit of thy sire thine own,
     His lips of scorning, and his heart of stone.

     What heeds the warrior of a hundred fights,
     The storm-worn watcher through long hunting nights,
     Cold, crafty, proud of woman's weak distress,
     Her home-bound grief and pining loneliness?

     The wild March rains had fallen fast and long
     The snowy mountains of the North among,
     Making each vale a watercourse, each hill
     Bright with the cascade of some new-made rill.

     Gnawed by the sunbeams, softened by the rain,
     Heaved underneath by the swollen current's strain,
     The ice-bridge yielded, and the Merrimac
     Bore the huge ruin crashing down its track.

     On that strong turbid water, a small boat
     Guided by one weak hand was seen to float;
     Evil the fate which loosed it from the shore,
     Too early voyager with too frail an oar!

     Down the vexed centre of that rushing tide,
     The thick huge ice-blocks threatening either side,
     The foam-white rocks of Amoskeag in view,
     With arrowy swiftness sped that light canoe.

     The trapper, moistening his moose's meat
     On the wet bank by Uncanoonuc's feet,
     Saw the swift boat flash down the troubled stream;
     Slept he, or waked he? was it truth or dream?

     The straining eye bent fearfully before,
     The small hand clenching on the useless oar,
     The bead-wrought blanket trailing o'er the water—
     He knew them all—woe for the Sachem's daughter!

     Sick and aweary of her lonely life,
     Heedless of peril, the still faithful wife
     Had left her mother's grave, her father's door,
     To seek the wigwam of her chief once more.

     Down the white rapids like a sear leaf whirled,
     On the sharp rocks and piled-up ices hurled,
     Empty and broken, circled the canoe
     In the vexed pool below—but where was Weetamoo.

     The Dark eye has left us,
     The Spring-bird has flown;
     On the pathway of spirits
     She wanders alone.
     The song of the wood-dove has died on our shore
     Mat wonck kunna-monee! We hear it no more!

     O dark water Spirit
     We cast on thy wave
     These furs which may never
     Hang over her grave;
     Bear down to the lost one the robes that she wore
     Mat wonck kunna-monee! We see her no more!

     Of the strange land she walks in
     No Powah has told:
     It may burn with the sunshine,
     Or freeze with the cold.
     Let us give to our lost one the robes that she wore:
     Mat wonck kunna-monee! We see her no more!

     The path she is treading
     Shall soon be our own;
     Each gliding in shadow
     Unseen and alone!
     In vain shall we call on the souls gone before:
     Mat wonck kunna-monee! They hear us no more!

     O mighty Sowanna!
     Thy gateways unfold,
     From thy wigwam of sunset
     Lift curtains of gold!

     Take home the poor Spirit whose journey is o'er
     Mat wonck kunna-monee! We see her no more!

     So sang the Children of the Leaves beside
     The broad, dark river's coldly flowing tide;
     Now low, now harsh, with sob-like pause and swell,
     On the high wind their voices rose and fell.
     Nature's wild music,—sounds of wind-swept trees,
     The scream of birds, the wailing of the breeze,
     The roar of waters, steady, deep, and strong,—
     Mingled and murmured in that farewell song.

     1844.

     Up the streets of Aberdeen,
     By the kirk and college green,
     Rode the Laird of Ury;
     Close behind him, close beside,
     Foul of mouth and evil-eyed,
     Pressed the mob in fury.

     Flouted him the drunken churl,
     Jeered at him the serving-girl,
     Prompt to please her master;
     And the begging carlin, late
     Fed and clothed at Ury's gate,
     Cursed him as he passed her.

     Yet, with calm and stately mien,
     Up the streets of Aberdeen
     Came he slowly riding;
     And, to all he saw and heard,
     Answering not with bitter word,
     Turning not for chiding.

     Came a troop with broadswords swinging,
     Bits and bridles sharply ringing,
     Loose and free and froward;
     Quoth the foremost, "Ride him down!
     Push him! prick him! through the town
     Drive the Quaker coward!"

     But from out the thickening crowd
     Cried a sudden voice and loud
     "Barclay! Ho! a Barclay!"
     And the old man at his side
     Saw a comrade, battle tried,
     Scarred and sunburned darkly;

     Who with ready weapon bare,
     Fronting to the troopers there,
     Cried aloud: "God save us,
     Call ye coward him who stood
     Ankle deep in Lutzen's blood,
     With the brave Gustavus?"

     "Nay, I do not need thy sword,
     Comrade mine," said Ury's lord;
     "Put it up, I pray thee
     Passive to His holy will,
     Trust I in my Master still,
     Even though He slay me.

     "Pledges of thy love and faith,
     Proved on many a field of death,
     Not by me are needed."
     Marvelled much that henchman bold,
     That his laird, so stout of old,
     Now so meekly pleaded.

     "Woe's the day!" he sadly said,
     With a slowly shaking head,
     And a look of pity;
     "Ury's honest lord reviled,
     Mock of knave and sport of child,
     In his own good city.

     "Speak the word, and, master mine,
     As we charged on Tilly's line,
     And his Walloon lancers,
     Smiting through their midst we'll teach
     Civil look and decent speech
     To these boyish prancers!"

     "Marvel not, mine ancient friend,
     Like beginning, like the end:"
     Quoth the Laird of Ury;
     "Is the sinful servant more
     Than his gracious Lord who bore
     Bonds and stripes in Jewry?

     "Give me joy that in His name
     I can bear, with patient frame,
     All these vain ones offer;
     While for them He suffereth long,
     Shall I answer wrong with wrong,
     Scoffing with the scoffer?

     "Happier I, with loss of all,
     Hunted, outlawed, held in thrall,
     With few friends to greet me,
     Than when reeve and squire were seen,
     Riding out from Aberdeen,
     With bared heads to meet me.

     "When each goodwife, o'er and o'er,
     Blessed me as I passed her door;
     And the snooded daughter,
     Through her casement glancing down,
     Smiled on him who bore renown
     From red fields of slaughter.

     "Hard to feel the stranger's scoff,
     Hard the old friend's falling off,
     Hard to learn forgiving;
     But the Lord His own rewards,
     And His love with theirs accords,
     Warm and fresh and living.

     "Through this dark and stormy night
     Faith beholds a feeble light
     Up the blackness streaking;
     Knowing God's own time is best,
     In a patient hope I rest
     For the full day-breaking!"

     So the Laird of Ury said,
     Turning slow his horse's head
     Towards the Tolbooth prison,
     Where, through iron gates, he heard
     Poor disciples of the Word
     Preach of Christ arisen!

     Not in vain, Confessor old,
     Unto us the tale is told
     Of thy day of trial;
     Every age on him who strays
     From its broad and beaten ways
     Pours its seven-fold vial.

     Happy he whose inward ear
     Angel comfortings can hear,
     O'er the rabble's laughter;
     And while Hatred's fagots burn,
     Glimpses through the smoke discern
     Of the good hereafter.

     Knowing this, that never yet
     Share of Truth was vainly set
     In the world's wide fallow;
     After hands shall sow the seed,
     After hands from hill and mead
     Reap the harvests yellow.

     Thus, with somewhat of the Seer,
     Must the moral pioneer
     From the Future borrow;
     Clothe the waste with dreams of grain,
     And, on midnight's sky of rain,
     Paint the golden morrow!

     SPEAK and tell us, our Ximena, looking northward
     far away,
     O'er the camp of the invaders, o'er the Mexican
     array,
     Who is losing? who is winning? are they far or
     come they near?
     Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither rolls the
     storm we hear.
     Down the hills of Angostura still the storm of
     battle rolls;
     Blood is flowing, men are dying; God have mercy
     on their souls!
     "Who is losing? who is winning?" Over hill
     and over plain,
     I see but smoke of cannon clouding through the
     mountain rain.

     Holy Mother! keep our brothers! Look, Ximena,
     look once more.
     "Still I see the fearful whirlwind rolling darkly
     as before,
     Bearing on, in strange confusion, friend and foeman,
     foot and horse,
     Like some wild and troubled torrent sweeping
     down its mountain course."

     Look forth once more, Ximena! "Ah! the smoke
     has rolled away;
     And I see the Northern rifles gleaming down the
     ranks of gray.
     Hark! that sudden blast of bugles! there the troop
     of Minon wheels;
     There the Northern horses thunder, with the cannon
     at their heels.

     "Jesu, pity I how it thickens I now retreat and
     now advance!
     Bight against the blazing cannon shivers Puebla's
     charging lance!
     Down they go, the brave young riders; horse and
     foot together fall;
     Like a ploughshare in the fallow, through them
     ploughs the Northern ball."

     Nearer came the storm and nearer, rolling fast and
     frightful on!
     Speak, Ximena, speak and tell us, who has lost,
     and who has won?
     Alas! alas! I know not; friend and foe together
     fall,
     O'er the dying rush the living: pray, my sisters,
     for them all!

     "Lo! the wind the smoke is lifting. Blessed
     Mother, save my brain!
     I can see the wounded crawling slowly out from
     heaps of slain.
     Now they stagger, blind and bleeding; now they
     fall, and strive to rise;
     Hasten, sisters, haste and save them, lest they die
     before our eyes!

     "O my hearts love! O my dear one! lay thy
     poor head on my knee;
     Dost thou know the lips that kiss thee? Canst
     thou hear me? canst thou see?
     O my husband, brave and gentle! O my Bernal,
     look once more
     On the blessed cross before thee! Mercy!
     all is o'er!"

     Dry thy tears, my poor Ximena; lay thy dear one
     down to rest;
     Let his hands be meekly folded, lay the cross upon
     his breast;
     Let his dirge be sung hereafter, and his funeral
     masses said;
     To-day, thou poor bereaved one, the living ask thy
     aid.

     Close beside her, faintly moaning, fair and young,
     a soldier lay,
     Torn with shot and pierced with lances, bleeding
     slow his life away;
     But, as tenderly before him the lorn Ximena knelt,
     She saw the Northern eagle shining on his pistol-
     belt.

     With a stifled cry of horror straight she turned
     away her head;
     With a sad and bitter feeling looked she back upon
     her dead;
     But she heard the youth's low moaning, and his
     struggling breath of pain,
     And she raised the cooling water to his parching
     lips again.

     Whispered low the dying soldier, pressed her hand
     and faintly smiled;
     Was that pitying face his mother's? did she watch
     beside her child?
     All his stranger words with meaning her woman's
     heart supplied;
     With her kiss upon his forehead, "Mother!"
     murmured he, and died!

     "A bitter curse upon them, poor boy, who led thee
     forth,
     From some gentle, sad-eyed mother, weeping, lonely,
     in the North!"
     Spake the mournful Mexic woman, as she laid him
     with her dead,
     And turned to soothe the living, and bind the
     wounds which bled.

     "Look forth once more, Ximena!" Like a cloud
     before the wind
     Rolls the battle down the mountains, leaving blood
     and death behind;
     Ah! they plead in vain for mercy; in the dust the
     wounded strive;
     "Hide your faces, holy angels! O thou Christ of
     God, forgive!"

     Sink, O Night, among thy mountains! let the cool,
     gray shadows fall;
     Dying brothers, fighting demons, drop thy curtain
     over all!
     Through the thickening winter twilight, wide apart
     the battle rolled,
     In its sheath the sabre rested, and the cannon's
     lips grew cold.

     But the noble Mexic women still their holy task
     pursued,
     Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn and
     faint and lacking food.
     Over weak and suffering brothers, with a tender
     care they hung,
     And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange
     and Northern tongue.

     Not wholly lost, O Father! is this evil world of
     ours;
     Upward, through its blood and ashes, spring afresh
     the Eden flowers;
     From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity
     send their prayer,
     And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in
     our air!

     1847.

     THE day is closing dark and cold,
     With roaring blast and sleety showers;
     And through the dusk the lilacs wear
     The bloom of snow, instead of flowers.

     I turn me from the gloom without,
     To ponder o'er a tale of old;
     A legend of the age of Faith,
     By dreaming monk or abbess told.

     On Tintoretto's canvas lives
     That fancy of a loving heart,
     In graceful lines and shapes of power,
     And hues immortal as his art.

     In Provence (so the story runs)
     There lived a lord, to whom, as slave,
     A peasant-boy of tender years
     The chance of trade or conquest gave.

     Forth-looking from the castle tower,
     Beyond the hills with almonds dark,
     The straining eye could scarce discern
     The chapel of the good St. Mark.

     And there, when bitter word or fare
     The service of the youth repaid,
     By stealth, before that holy shrine,
     For grace to bear his wrong, he prayed.

     The steed stamped at the castle gate,
     The boar-hunt sounded on the hill;
     Why stayed the Baron from the chase,
     With looks so stern, and words so ill?

     "Go, bind yon slave! and let him learn,
     By scath of fire and strain of cord,
     How ill they speed who give dead saints
     The homage due their living lord!"

     They bound him on the fearful rack,
     When, through the dungeon's vaulted dark,
     He saw the light of shining robes,
     And knew the face of good St. Mark.

     Then sank the iron rack apart,
     The cords released their cruel clasp,
     The pincers, with their teeth of fire,
     Fell broken from the torturer's grasp.

     And lo! before the Youth and Saint,
     Barred door and wall of stone gave way;
     And up from bondage and the night
     They passed to freedom and the day!

     O dreaming monk! thy tale is true;
     O painter! true thy pencil's art;
     in tones of hope and prophecy,
     Ye whisper to my listening heart!

     Unheard no burdened heart's appeal
     Moans up to God's inclining ear;
     Unheeded by his tender eye,
     Falls to the earth no sufferer's tear.

     For still the Lord alone is God
     The pomp and power of tyrant man
     Are scattered at his lightest breath,
     Like chaff before the winnower's fan.

     Not always shall the slave uplift
     His heavy hands to Heaven in vain.
     God's angel, like the good St. Mark,
     Comes shining down to break his chain!

     O weary ones! ye may not see
     Your helpers in their downward flight;
     Nor hear the sound of silver wings
     Slow beating through the hush of night!

     But not the less gray Dothan shone,
     With sunbright watchers bending low,
     That Fear's dim eye beheld alone
     The spear-heads of the Syrian foe.

     There are, who, like the Seer of old,
     Can see the helpers God has sent,
     And how life's rugged mountain-side
     Is white with many an angel tent!

     They hear the heralds whom our Lord
     Sends down his pathway to prepare;
     And light, from others hidden, shines
     On their high place of faith and prayer.

     Let such, for earth's despairing ones,
     Hopeless, yet longing to be free,
     Breathe once again the Prophet's prayer
     "Lord, ope their eyes, that they may see!"

     1849.

     O NORAH, lay your basket down,
     And rest your weary hand,
     And come and hear me sing a song
     Of our old Ireland.

     There was a lord of Galaway,
     A mighty lord was he;
     And he did wed a second wife,
     A maid of low degree.

     But he was old, and she was young,
     And so, in evil spite,
     She baked the black bread for his kin,
     And fed her own with white.

     She whipped the maids and starved the kern,
     And drove away the poor;
     "Ah, woe is me!" the old lord said,
     "I rue my bargain sore!"

     This lord he had a daughter fair,
     Beloved of old and young,
     And nightly round the shealing-fires
     Of her the gleeman sung.

     "As sweet and good is young Kathleen
     As Eve before her fall;"
     So sang the harper at the fair,
     So harped he in the hall.

     "Oh, come to me, my daughter dear!
     Come sit upon my knee,
     For looking in your face, Kathleen,
     Your mother's own I see!"

     He smoothed and smoothed her hair away,
     He kissed her forehead fair;
     "It is my darling Mary's brow,
     It is my darling's hair!"

     Oh, then spake up the angry dame,
     "Get up, get up," quoth she,
     "I'll sell ye over Ireland,
     I'll sell ye o'er the sea!"

     She clipped her glossy hair away,
     That none her rank might know;
     She took away her gown of silk,
     And gave her one of tow,

     And sent her down to Limerick town
     And to a seaman sold
     This daughter of an Irish lord
     For ten good pounds in gold.

     The lord he smote upon his breast,
     And tore his beard so gray;
     But he was old, and she was young,
     And so she had her way.

     Sure that same night the Banshee howled
     To fright the evil dame,
     And fairy folks, who loved Kathleen,
     With funeral torches came.

     She watched them glancing through the trees,
     And glimmering down the hill;
     They crept before the dead-vault door,
     And there they all stood still!

     "Get up, old man! the wake-lights shine!"
     "Ye murthering witch," quoth he,
     "So I'm rid of your tongue, I little care
     If they shine for you or me."

     "Oh, whoso brings my daughter back,
     My gold and land shall have!"
     Oh, then spake up his handsome page,
     "No gold nor land I crave!

     "But give to me your daughter dear,
     Give sweet Kathleen to me,
     Be she on sea or be she on land,
     I'll bring her back to thee."

     "My daughter is a lady born,
     And you of low degree,
     But she shall be your bride the day
     You bring her back to me."

     He sailed east, he sailed west,
     And far and long sailed he,
     Until he came to Boston town,
     Across the great salt sea.

     "Oh, have ye seen the young Kathleen,
     The flower of Ireland?
     Ye'll know her by her eyes so blue,
     And by her snow-white hand!"

     Out spake an ancient man, "I know
     The maiden whom ye mean;
     I bought her of a Limerick man,
     And she is called Kathleen.

     "No skill hath she in household work,
     Her hands are soft and white,
     Yet well by loving looks and ways
     She doth her cost requite."

     So up they walked through Boston town,
     And met a maiden fair,
     A little basket on her arm
     So snowy-white and bare.

     "Come hither, child, and say hast thou
     This young man ever seen?"
     They wept within each other's arms,
     The page and young Kathleen.

     "Oh give to me this darling child,
     And take my purse of gold."
     "Nay, not by me," her master said,
     "Shall sweet Kathleen be sold.

     "We loved her in the place of one
     The Lord hath early ta'en;
     But, since her heart's in Ireland,
     We give her back again!"

     Oh, for that same the saints in heaven
     For his poor soul shall pray,
     And Mary Mother wash with tears
     His heresies away.

     Sure now they dwell in Ireland;
     As you go up Claremore
     Ye'll see their castle looking down
     The pleasant Galway shore.

     And the old lord's wife is dead and gone,
     And a happy man is he,
     For he sits beside his own Kathleen,
     With her darling on his knee.

     1849.

     CALM on the breast of Loch Maree
     A little isle reposes;
     A shadow woven of the oak
     And willow o'er it closes.

     Within, a Druid's mound is seen,
     Set round with stony warders;
     A fountain, gushing through the turf,
     Flows o'er its grassy borders.

     And whoso bathes therein his brow,
     With care or madness burning,
     Feels once again his healthful thought
     And sense of peace returning.

     O restless heart and fevered brain,
     Unquiet and unstable,
     That holy well of Loch Maree
     Is more than idle fable!

     Life's changes vex, its discords stun,
     Its glaring sunshine blindeth,
     And blest is he who on his way
     That fount of healing findeth!

     The shadows of a humbled will
     And contrite heart are o'er it;
     Go read its legend, "TRUST IN GOD,"
     On Faith's white stones before it.

     1850.

     "I do believe, and yet, in grief,
     I pray for help to unbelief;
     For needful strength aside to lay
     The daily cumberings of my way.

     "I'm sick at heart of craft and cant,
     Sick of the crazed enthusiast's rant,
     Profession's smooth hypocrisies,
     And creeds of iron, and lives of ease.

     "I ponder o'er the sacred word,
     I read the record of our Lord;
     And, weak and troubled, envy them
     Who touched His seamless garment's hem;

     "Who saw the tears of love He wept
     Above the grave where Lazarus slept;
     And heard, amidst the shadows dim
     Of Olivet, His evening hymn.

     "How blessed the swineherd's low estate,
     The beggar crouching at the gate,
     The leper loathly and abhorred,
     Whose eyes of flesh beheld the Lord!

     "O sacred soil His sandals pressed!
     Sweet fountains of His noonday rest!
     O light and air of Palestine,
     Impregnate with His life divine!

     "Oh, bear me thither! Let me look
     On Siloa's pool, and Kedron's brook;
     Kneel at Gethsemane, and by
     Gennesaret walk, before I die!

     "Methinks this cold and northern night
     Would melt before that Orient light;
     And, wet by Hermon's dew and rain,
     My childhood's faith revive again!"

     So spake my friend, one autumn day,
     Where the still river slid away
     Beneath us, and above the brown
     Red curtains of the woods shut down.

     Then said I,—for I could not brook
     The mute appealing of his look,—
     "I, too, am weak, and faith is small,
     And blindness happeneth unto all.

     "Yet, sometimes glimpses on my sight,
     Through present wrong, the eternal right;
     And, step by step, since time began,
     I see the steady gain of man;

     "That all of good the past hath had
     Remains to make our own time glad,
     Our common daily life divine,
     And every land a Palestine.

     "Thou weariest of thy present state;
     What gain to thee time's holiest date?
     The doubter now perchance had been
     As High Priest or as Pilate then!

     "What thought Chorazin's scribes? What faith
     In Him had Nain and Nazareth?
     Of the few followers whom He led
     One sold Him,—all forsook and fled.

     "O friend! we need nor rock nor sand,
     Nor storied stream of Morning-Land;
     The heavens are glassed in Merrimac,—
     What more could Jordan render back?

     "We lack but open eye and ear
     To find the Orient's marvels here;
     The still small voice in autumn's hush,
     Yon maple wood the burning bush.

     "For still the new transcends the old,
     In signs and tokens manifold;
     Slaves rise up men; the olive waves,
     With roots deep set in battle graves!

     "Through the harsh noises of our day
     A low, sweet prelude finds its way;
     Through clouds of doubt, and creeds of fear,
     A light is breaking, calm and clear.

     "That song of Love, now low and far,
     Erelong shall swell from star to star!
     That light, the breaking day, which tips
     The golden-spired Apocalypse!"

     Then, when my good friend shook his head,
     And, sighing, sadly smiled, I said:
     "Thou mind'st me of a story told
     In rare Bernardin's leaves of gold."

     And while the slanted sunbeams wove
     The shadows of the frost-stained grove,
     And, picturing all, the river ran
     O'er cloud and wood, I thus began:—

      . . . . . . . . . . . . .

     In Mount Valerien's chestnut wood
     The Chapel of the Hermits stood;
     And thither, at the close of day,
     Came two old pilgrims, worn and gray.

     One, whose impetuous youth defied
     The storms of Baikal's wintry side,
     And mused and dreamed where tropic day
     Flamed o'er his lost Virginia's bay.

     His simple tale of love and woe
     All hearts had melted, high or low;—
     A blissful pain, a sweet distress,
     Immortal in its tenderness.

     Yet, while above his charmed page
     Beat quick the young heart of his age,
     He walked amidst the crowd unknown,
     A sorrowing old man, strange and lone.

     A homeless, troubled age,—the gray
     Pale setting of a weary day;
     Too dull his ear for voice of praise,
     Too sadly worn his brow for bays.

     Pride, lust of power and glory, slept;
     Yet still his heart its young dream kept,
     And, wandering like the deluge-dove,
     Still sought the resting-place of love.

     And, mateless, childless, envied more
     The peasant's welcome from his door
     By smiling eyes at eventide,
     Than kingly gifts or lettered pride.

     Until, in place of wife and child,
     All-pitying Nature on him smiled,
     And gave to him the golden keys
     To all her inmost sanctities.

     Mild Druid of her wood-paths dim!
     She laid her great heart bare to him,
     Its loves and sweet accords;—he saw
     The beauty of her perfect law.

     The language of her signs he knew,
     What notes her cloudy clarion blew;
     The rhythm of autumn's forest dyes,
     The hymn of sunset's painted skies.

     And thus he seemed to hear the song
     Which swept, of old, the stars along;
     And to his eyes the earth once more
     Its fresh and primal beauty wore.

     Who sought with him, from summer air,
     And field and wood, a balm for care;
     And bathed in light of sunset skies
     His tortured nerves and weary eyes?

     His fame on all the winds had flown;
     His words had shaken crypt and throne;
     Like fire, on camp and court and cell
     They dropped, and kindled as they fell.

     Beneath the pomps of state, below
     The mitred juggler's masque and show,
     A prophecy, a vague hope, ran
     His burning thought from man to man.

     For peace or rest too well he saw
     The fraud of priests, the wrong of law,
     And felt how hard, between the two,
     Their breath of pain the millions drew.

     A prophet-utterance, strong and wild,
     The weakness of an unweaned child,
     A sun-bright hope for human-kind,
     And self-despair, in him combined.

     He loathed the false, yet lived not true
     To half the glorious truths he knew;
     The doubt, the discord, and the sin,
     He mourned without, he felt within.

     Untrod by him the path he showed,
     Sweet pictures on his easel glowed
     Of simple faith, and loves of home,
     And virtue's golden days to come.

     But weakness, shame, and folly made
     The foil to all his pen portrayed;
     Still, where his dreamy splendors shone,
     The shadow of himself was thrown.

     Lord, what is man, whose thought, at times,
     Up to Thy sevenfold brightness climbs,
     While still his grosser instinct clings
     To earth, like other creeping things!

     So rich in words, in acts so mean;
     So high, so low; chance-swung between
     The foulness of the penal pit
     And Truth's clear sky, millennium-lit!

     Vain, pride of star-lent genius!—vain,
     Quick fancy and creative brain,
     Unblest by prayerful sacrifice,
     Absurdly great, or weakly wise!

     Midst yearnings for a truer life,
     Without were fears, within was strife;
     And still his wayward act denied
     The perfect good for which he sighed.

     The love he sent forth void returned;
     The fame that crowned him scorched and burned,
     Burning, yet cold and drear and lone,—
     A fire-mount in a frozen zone!

     Like that the gray-haired sea-king passed,
     Seen southward from his sleety mast,
     About whose brows of changeless frost
     A wreath of flame the wild winds tossed.

     Far round the mournful beauty played
     Of lambent light and purple shade,
     Lost on the fixed and dumb despair
     Of frozen earth and sea and air!

     A man apart, unknown, unloved
     By those whose wrongs his soul had moved,
     He bore the ban of Church and State,
     The good man's fear, the bigot's hate!

     Forth from the city's noise and throng,
     Its pomp and shame, its sin and wrong,
     The twain that summer day had strayed
     To Mount Valerien's chestnut shade.

     To them the green fields and the wood
     Lent something of their quietude,
     And golden-tinted sunset seemed
     Prophetical of all they dreamed.

     The hermits from their simple cares
     The bell was calling home to prayers,
     And, listening to its sound, the twain
     Seemed lapped in childhood's trust again.

     Wide open stood the chapel door;
     A sweet old music, swelling o'er
     Low prayerful murmurs, issued thence,—
     The Litanies of Providence!

     Then Rousseau spake: "Where two or three
     In His name meet, He there will be!"
     And then, in silence, on their knees
     They sank beneath the chestnut-trees.

     As to the blind returning light,
     As daybreak to the Arctic night,
     Old faith revived; the doubts of years
     Dissolved in reverential tears.

     That gush of feeling overpast,
     "Ah me!" Bernardin sighed at last,
     I would thy bitterest foes could see
     Thy heart as it is seen of me!

     "No church of God hast thou denied;
     Thou hast but spurned in scorn aside
     A bare and hollow counterfeit,
     Profaning the pure name of it!

     "With dry dead moss and marish weeds
     His fire the western herdsman feeds,
     And greener from the ashen plain
     The sweet spring grasses rise again.

     "Nor thunder-peal nor mighty wind
     Disturb the solid sky behind;
     And through the cloud the red bolt rends
     The calm, still smile of Heaven descends.

     "Thus through the world, like bolt and blast,
     And scourging fire, thy words have passed.
     Clouds break,—the steadfast heavens remain;
     Weeds burn,—the ashes feed the grain!

     "But whoso strives with wrong may find
     Its touch pollute, its darkness blind;
     And learn, as latent fraud is shown
     In others' faith, to doubt his own.

     "With dream and falsehood, simple trust
     And pious hope we tread in dust;
     Lost the calm faith in goodness,—lost
     The baptism of the Pentecost!

     "Alas!—the blows for error meant
     Too oft on truth itself are spent,
     As through the false and vile and base
     Looks forth her sad, rebuking face.

     "Not ours the Theban's charmed life;
     We come not scathless from the strife!
     The Python's coil about us clings,
     The trampled Hydra bites and stings!

     "Meanwhile, the sport of seeming chance,
     The plastic shapes of circumstance,
     What might have been we fondly guess,
     If earlier born, or tempted less.

     "And thou, in these wild, troubled days,
     Misjudged alike in blame and praise,
     Unsought and undeserved the same
     The skeptic's praise, the bigot's blame;—

     "I cannot doubt, if thou hadst been
     Among the highly favored men
     Who walked on earth with Fenelon,
     He would have owned thee as his son;

     "And, bright with wings of cherubim
     Visibly waving over him,
     Seen through his life, the Church had seemed
     All that its old confessors dreamed."

     "I would have been," Jean Jaques replied,
     "The humblest servant at his side,
     Obscure, unknown, content to see
     How beautiful man's life may be!

     "Oh, more than thrice-blest relic, more
     Than solemn rite or sacred lore,
     The holy life of one who trod
     The foot-marks of the Christ of God!

     "Amidst a blinded world he saw
     The oneness of the Dual law;
     That Heaven's sweet peace on Earth began,
     And God was loved through love of man.

     "He lived the Truth which reconciled
     The strong man Reason, Faith, the child;
     In him belief and act were one,
     The homilies of duty done!"

     So speaking, through the twilight gray
     The two old pilgrims went their way.
     What seeds of life that day were sown,
     The heavenly watchers knew alone.

     Time passed, and Autumn came to fold
     Green Summer in her brown and gold;
     Time passed, and Winter's tears of snow
     Dropped on the grave-mound of Rousseau.

     "The tree remaineth where it fell,
     The pained on earth is pained in hell!"
     So priestcraft from its altars cursed
     The mournful doubts its falsehood nursed.

     Ah! well of old the Psalmist prayed,
     "Thy hand, not man's, on me be laid!"
     Earth frowns below, Heaven weeps above,
     And man is hate, but God is love!

     No Hermits now the wanderer sees,
     Nor chapel with its chestnut-trees;
     A morning dream, a tale that's told,
     The wave of change o'er all has rolled.

     Yet lives the lesson of that day;
     And from its twilight cool and gray
     Comes up a low, sad whisper, "Make
     The truth thine own, for truth's own sake.

     "Why wait to see in thy brief span
     Its perfect flower and fruit in man?
     No saintly touch can save; no balm
     Of healing hath the martyr's palm.

     "Midst soulless forms, and false pretence
     Of spiritual pride and pampered sense,
     A voice saith, 'What is that to thee?
     Be true thyself, and follow Me!

     "In days when throne and altar heard
     The wanton's wish, the bigot's word,
     And pomp of state and ritual show
     Scarce hid the loathsome death below,—

     "Midst fawning priests and courtiers foul,
     The losel swarm of crown and cowl,
     White-robed walked Francois Fenelon,
     Stainless as Uriel in the sun!

     "Yet in his time the stake blazed red,
     The poor were eaten up like bread
     Men knew him not; his garment's hem
     No healing virtue had for them.

     "Alas! no present saint we find;
     The white cymar gleams far behind,
     Revealed in outline vague, sublime,
     Through telescopic mists of time!

     "Trust not in man with passing breath,
     But in the Lord, old Scripture saith;
     The truth which saves thou mayst not blend
     With false professor, faithless friend.

     "Search thine own heart. What paineth thee
     In others in thyself may be;
     All dust is frail, all flesh is weak;
     Be thou the true man thou dost seek!

     "Where now with pain thou treadest, trod
     The whitest of the saints of God!
     To show thee where their feet were set,
     the light which led them shineth yet.

     "The footprints of the life divine,
     Which marked their path, remain in thine;
     And that great Life, transfused in theirs,
     Awaits thy faith, thy love, thy prayers!"

     A lesson which I well may heed,
     A word of fitness to my need;
     So from that twilight cool and gray
     Still saith a voice, or seems to say.

     We rose, and slowly homeward turned,
     While down the west the sunset burned;
     And, in its light, hill, wood, and tide,
     And human forms seemed glorified.

     The village homes transfigured stood,
     And purple bluffs, whose belting wood
     Across the waters leaned to hold
     The yellow leaves like lamps of hold.

     Then spake my friend: "Thy words are true;
     Forever old, forever new,
     These home-seen splendors are the same
     Which over Eden's sunsets came.

     "To these bowed heavens let wood and hill
     Lift voiceless praise and anthem still;
     Fall, warm with blessing, over them,
     Light of the New Jerusalem!

     "Flow on, sweet river, like the stream
     Of John's Apocalyptic dream
     This mapled ridge shall Horeb be,
     Yon green-banked lake our Galilee!

     "Henceforth my heart shall sigh no more
     For olden time and holier shore;
     God's love and blessing, then and there,
     Are now and here and everywhere."

     1851.