I.
     Fate summoned, in gray-bearded age, to act
     A history stranger than his written fact,
     Him who portrayed the splendor and the gloom
     Of that great hour when throne and altar fell
     With long death-groan which still is audible.
     He, when around the walls of Paris rung
     The Prussian bugle like the blast of doom,
     And every ill which follows unblest war
     Maddened all France from Finistere to Var,
     The weight of fourscore from his shoulders flung,
     And guided Freedom in the path he saw
     Lead out of chaos into light and law,
     Peace, not imperial, but republican,
     And order pledged to all the Rights of Man.

     II.
     Death called him from a need as imminent
     As that from which the Silent William went
     When powers of evil, like the smiting seas
     On Holland's dikes, assailed her liberties.
     Sadly, while yet in doubtful balance hung
     The weal and woe of France, the bells were rung
     For her lost leader. Paralyzed of will,
     Above his bier the hearts of men stood still.
     Then, as if set to his dead lips, the horn
     Of Roland wound once more to rouse and warn,
     The old voice filled the air! His last brave word
     Not vainly France to all her boundaries stirred.
     Strong as in life, he still for Freedom wrought,
     As the dead Cid at red Toloso fought.

     1877.

     Among their graven shapes to whom
     Thy civic wreaths belong,
     O city of his love, make room
     For one whose gift was song.

     Not his the soldier's sword to wield,
     Nor his the helm of state,
     Nor glory of the stricken field,
     Nor triumph of debate.

     In common ways, with common men,
     He served his race and time
     As well as if his clerkly pen
     Had never danced to rhyme.

     If, in the thronged and noisy mart,
     The Muses found their son,
     Could any say his tuneful art
     A duty left undone?

     He toiled and sang; and year by year
     Men found their homes more sweet,
     And through a tenderer atmosphere
     Looked down the brick-walled street.

     The Greek's wild onset gall Street knew;
     The Red King walked Broadway;
     And Alnwick Castle's roses blew
     From Palisades to Bay.

     Fair City by the Sea! upraise
     His veil with reverent hands;
     And mingle with thy own the praise
     And pride of other lands.

     Let Greece his fiery lyric breathe
     Above her hero-urns;
     And Scotland, with her holly, wreathe
     The flower he culled for Burns.

     Oh, stately stand thy palace walls,
     Thy tall ships ride the seas;
     To-day thy poet's name recalls
     A prouder thought than these.

     Not less thy pulse of trade shall beat,
     Nor less thy tall fleets swim,
     That shaded square and dusty street
     Are classic ground through him.

     Alive, he loved, like all who sing,
     The echoes of his song;
     Too late the tardy meed we bring,
     The praise delayed so long.

     Too late, alas! Of all who knew
     The living man, to-day
     Before his unveiled face, how few
     Make bare their locks of gray!

     Our lips of praise must soon be dumb,
     Our grateful eyes be dim;
     O brothers of the days to come,
     Take tender charge of him!

     New hands the wires of song may sweep,
     New voices challenge fame;
     But let no moss of years o'ercreep
     The lines of Halleck's name.

     1877.

     Oh, well may Essex sit forlorn
     Beside her sea-blown shore;
     Her well beloved, her noblest born,
     Is hers in life no more!

     No lapse of years can render less
     Her memory's sacred claim;
     No fountain of forgetfulness
     Can wet the lips of Fame.

     A grief alike to wound and heal,
     A thought to soothe and pain,
     The sad, sweet pride that mothers feel
     To her must still remain.

     Good men and true she has not lacked,
     And brave men yet shall be;
     The perfect flower, the crowning fact,
     Of all her years was he!

     As Galahad pure, as Merlin sage,
     What worthier knight was found
     To grace in Arthur's golden age
     The fabled Table Round?

     A voice, the battle's trumpet-note,
     To welcome and restore;
     A hand, that all unwilling smote,
     To heal and build once more;

     A soul of fire, a tender heart
     Too warm for hate, he knew
     The generous victor's graceful part
     To sheathe the sword he drew.

     When Earth, as if on evil dreams,
     Looks back upon her wars,
     And the white light of Christ outstreams
     From the red disk of Mars,

     His fame who led the stormy van
     Of battle well may cease,
     But never that which crowns the man
     Whose victory was Peace.

     Mourn, Essex, on thy sea-blown shore
     Thy beautiful and brave,
     Whose failing hand the olive bore,
     Whose dying lips forgave!

     Let age lament the youthful chief,
     And tender eyes be dim;
     The tears are more of joy than grief
     That fall for one like him!

     1878.

     I.
     "And where now, Bayard, will thy footsteps tend?"
     My sister asked our guest one winter's day.
     Smiling he answered in the Friends' sweet way
     Common to both: "Wherever thou shall send!
     What wouldst thou have me see for thee?" She laughed,
     Her dark eyes dancing in the wood-fire's glow
     "Loffoden isles, the Kilpis, and the low,
     Unsetting sun on Finmark's fishing-craft."
     "All these and more I soon shall see for thee!"
     He answered cheerily: and he kept his pledge
     On Lapland snows, the North Cape's windy wedge,
     And Tromso freezing in its winter sea.
     He went and came. But no man knows the  track
     Of his last journey, and he comes not back!

     II.
     He brought us wonders of the new and old;
     We shared all climes with him. The Arab's tent
     To him its story-telling secret lent.
     And, pleased, we listened to the tales he told.
     His task, beguiled with songs that shall endure,
     In manly, honest thoroughness he wrought;
     From humble home-lays to the heights of thought
     Slowly he climbed, but every step was sure.
     How, with the generous pride that friendship hath,
     We, who so loved him, saw at last the crown
     Of civic honor on his brows pressed down,
     Rejoiced, and knew not that the gift was death.
     And now for him, whose praise in deafened ears
     Two nations speak, we answer but with tears!

     III.
     O Vale of Chester! trod by him so oft,
     Green as thy June turf keep his memory. Let
     Nor wood, nor dell, nor storied stream forget,
     Nor winds that blow round lonely Cedarcroft;
     Let the home voices greet him in the far,
     Strange land that holds him; let the messages
     Of love pursue him o'er the chartless seas
     And unmapped vastness of his unknown star
     Love's language, heard beyond the loud discourse
     Of perishable fame, in every sphere
     Itself interprets; and its utterance here
     Somewhere in God's unfolding universe
     Shall reach our traveller, softening the surprise
     Of his rapt gaze on unfamiliar skies!

     1879.

     His laurels fresh from song and lay,
     Romance, art, science, rich in all,
     And young of heart, how dare we say
     We keep his seventieth festival?

     No sense is here of loss or lack;
     Before his sweetness and his light
     The dial holds its shadow back,
     The charmed hours delay their flight.

     His still the keen analysis
     Of men and moods, electric wit,
     Free play of mirth, and tenderness
     To heal the slightest wound from it.

     And his the pathos touching all
     Life's sins and sorrows and regrets,
     Its hopes and fears, its final call
     And rest beneath the violets.

     His sparkling surface scarce betrays
     The thoughtful tide beneath it rolled,
     The wisdom of the latter days,
     And tender memories of the old.

     What shapes and fancies, grave or gay,
     Before us at his bidding come
     The Treadmill tramp, the One-Horse Shay,
     The dumb despair of Elsie's doom!

     The tale of Avis and the Maid,
     The plea for lips that cannot speak,
     The holy kiss that Iris laid
     On Little Boston's pallid cheek!

     Long may he live to sing for us
     His sweetest songs at evening time,
     And, like his Chambered Nautilus,
     To holier heights of beauty climb,

     Though now unnumbered guests surround
     The table that he rules at will,
     Its Autocrat, however crowned,
     Is but our friend and comrade still.

     The world may keep his honored name,
     The wealth of all his varied powers;
     A stronger claim has love than fame,
     And he himself is only ours!

     We sat together, last May-day, and talked
     Of the dear friends who walked
     Beside us, sharers of the hopes and fears
     Of five and forty years,

     Since first we met in Freedom's hope forlorn,
     And heard her battle-horn
     Sound through the valleys of the sleeping North,
     Calling her children forth,

     And youth pressed forward with hope-lighted eyes,
     And age, with forecast wise
     Of the long strife before the triumph won,
     Girded his armor on.

     Sadly, ass name by name we called the roll,
     We heard the dead-bells toll
     For the unanswering many, and we knew
     The living were the few.

     And we, who waited our own call before
     The inevitable door,
     Listened and looked, as all have done, to win
     Some token from within.

     No sign we saw, we heard no voices call;
     The impenetrable wall
     Cast down its shadow, like an awful doubt,
     On all who sat without.

     Of many a hint of life beyond the veil,
     And many a ghostly tale
     Wherewith the ages spanned the gulf between
     The seen and the unseen,

     Seeking from omen, trance, and dream to gain
     Solace to doubtful pain,
     And touch, with groping hands, the garment hem
     Of truth sufficing them,

     We talked; and, turning from the sore unrest
     Of an all-baffling quest,
     We thought of holy lives that from us passed
     Hopeful unto the last,

     As if they saw beyond the river of death,
     Like Him of Nazareth,
     The many mansions of the Eternal days
     Lift up their gates of praise.

     And, hushed to silence by a reverent awe,
     Methought, O friend, I saw
     In thy true life of word, and work, and thought
     The proof of all we sought.

     Did we not witness in the life of thee
     Immortal prophecy?
     And feel, when with thee, that thy footsteps trod
     An everlasting road?

     Not for brief days thy generous sympathies,
     Thy scorn of selfish ease;
     Not for the poor prize of an earthly goal
     Thy strong uplift of soul.

     Than thine was never turned a fonder heart
     To nature and to art
     In fair-formed Hellas in her golden prime,
     Thy Philothea's time.

     Yet, loving beauty, thou couldst pass it by,
     And for the poor deny
     Thyself, and see thy fresh, sweet flower of fame
     Wither in blight and blame.

     Sharing His love who holds in His embrace
     The lowliest of our race,
     Sure the Divine economy must be
     Conservative of thee!

     For truth must live with truth, self-sacrifice
     Seek out its great allies;
     Good must find good by gravitation sure,
     And love with love endure.

     And so, since thou hast passed within the gate
     Whereby awhile I wait,
     I give blind grief and blinder sense the lie
     Thou hast not lived to die!

     1881.

     As a guest who may not stay
     Long and sad farewells to say
     Glides with smiling face away,

     Of the sweetness and the zest
     Of thy happy life possessed
     Thou hast left us at thy best.

     Warm of heart and clear of brain,
     Of thy sun-bright spirit's wane
     Thou hast spared us all the pain.

     Now that thou hast gone away,
     What is left of one to say
     Who was open as the day?

     What is there to gloss or shun?
     Save with kindly voices none
     Speak thy name beneath the sun.

     Safe thou art on every side,
     Friendship nothing finds to hide,
     Love's demand is satisfied.

     Over manly strength and worth,
     At thy desk of toil, or hearth,
     Played the lambent light of mirth,—

     Mirth that lit, but never burned;
     All thy blame to pity turned;
     Hatred thou hadst never learned.

     Every harsh and vexing thing
     At thy home-fire lost its sting;
     Where thou wast was always spring.

     And thy perfect trust in good,
     Faith in man and womanhood,
     Chance and change and time, withstood.

     Small respect for cant and whine,
     Bigot's zeal and hate malign,
     Had that sunny soul of thine.

     But to thee was duty's claim
     Sacred, and thy lips became
     Reverent with one holy Name.

     Therefore, on thy unknown way,
     Go in God's peace! We who stay
     But a little while delay.

     Keep for us, O friend, where'er
     Thou art waiting, all that here
     Made thy earthly presence dear;

     Something of thy pleasant past
     On a ground of wonder cast,
     In the stiller waters glassed!

     Keep the human heart of thee;
     Let the mortal only be
     Clothed in immortality.

     And when fall our feet as fell
     Thine upon the asphodel,
     Let thy old smile greet us well;

     Proving in a world of bliss
     What we fondly dream in this,—
     Love is one with holiness!

     1881.

     The lowliest born of all the land,
     He wrung from Fate's reluctant hand
     The gifts which happier boyhood claims;
     And, tasting on a thankless soil
     The bitter bread of unpaid toil,
     He fed his soul with noble aims.

     And Nature, kindly provident,
     To him the future's promise lent;
     The powers that shape man's destinies,
     Patience and faith and toil, he knew,
     The close horizon round him grew,
     Broad with great possibilities.

     By the low hearth-fire's fitful blaze
     He read of old heroic days,
     The sage's thought, the patriot's speech;
     Unhelped, alone, himself he taught,
     His school the craft at which he wrought,
     His lore the book within his, reach.

     He felt his country's need; he knew
     The work her children had to do;
     And when, at last, he heard the call
     In her behalf to serve and dare,
     Beside his senatorial chair
     He stood the unquestioned peer of all.

     Beyond the accident of birth
     He proved his simple manhood's worth;
     Ancestral pride and classic grace
     Confessed the large-brained artisan,
     So clear of sight, so wise in plan
     And counsel, equal to his place.

     With glance intuitive he saw
     Through all disguise of form and law,
     And read men like an open book;
     Fearless and firm, he never quailed
     Nor turned aside for threats, nor failed
     To do the thing he undertook.

     How wise, how brave, he was, how well
     He bore himself, let history tell
     While waves our flag o'er land and sea,
     No black thread in its warp or weft;
     He found dissevered States, he left
     A grateful Nation, strong and free!

     WITH a glory of winter sunshine
     Over his locks of gray,
     In the old historic mansion
     He sat on his last birthday;

     With his books and his pleasant pictures,
     And his household and his kin,
     While a sound as of myriads singing
     From far and near stole in.

     It came from his own fair city,
     From the prairie's boundless plain,
     From the Golden Gate of sunset,
     And the cedarn woods of Maine.

     And his heart grew warm within him,
     And his moistening eyes grew dim,
     For he knew that his country's children
     Were singing the songs of him,

     The lays of his life's glad morning,
     The psalms of his evening time,
     Whose echoes shall float forever
     On the winds of every clime.

     All their beautiful consolations,
     Sent forth like birds of cheer,
     Came flocking back to his windows,
     And sang in the Poet's ear.

     Grateful, but solemn and tender,
     The music rose and fell
     With a joy akin to sadness
     And a greeting like farewell.

     With a sense of awe he listened
     To the voices sweet and young;
     The last of earth and the first of heaven
     Seemed in the songs they sung.

     And waiting a little longer
     For the wonderful change to come,
     He heard the Summoning Angel,
     Who calls God's children home!

     And to him in a holier welcome
     Was the mystical meaning given
     Of the words of the blessed Master
     "Of such is the kingdom of heaven!"

     1882

     Take our hands, James Russell Lowell,
     Our hearts are all thy own;
     To-day we bid thee welcome
     Not for ourselves alone.

     In the long years of thy absence
     Some of us have grown old,
     And some have passed the portals
     Of the Mystery untold;

     For the hands that cannot clasp thee,
     For the voices that are dumb,
     For each and all I bid thee
     A grateful welcome home!

     For Cedarcroft's sweet singer
     To the nine-fold Muses dear;
     For the Seer the winding Concord
     Paused by his door to hear;

     For him, our guide and Nestor,
     Who the march of song began,
     The white locks of his ninety years
     Bared to thy winds, Cape Ann!

     For him who, to the music
     Her pines and hemlocks played,
     Set the old and tender story
     Of the lorn Acadian maid;

     For him, whose voice for freedom
     Swayed friend and foe at will,
     Hushed is the tongue of silver,
     The golden lips are still!

     For her whose life of duty
     At scoff and menace smiled,
     Brave as the wife of Roland,
     Yet gentle as a Child.

     And for him the three-hilled city
     Shall hold in memory long,
     Those name is the hint and token
     Of the pleasant Fields of Song!

     For the old friends unforgotten,
     For the young thou hast not known,
     I speak their heart-warm greeting;
     Come back and take thy own!

     From England's royal farewells,
     And honors fitly paid,
     Come back, dear Russell Lowell,
     To Elmwood's waiting shade!

     Come home with all the garlands
     That crown of right thy head.
     I speak for comrades living,
     I speak for comrades dead!

     AMESBURY, 6th mo., 1885.

     Haunted of Beauty, like the marvellous youth
     Who sang Saint Agnes' Eve! How passing fair
     Her shapes took color in thy homestead air!
     How on thy canvas even her dreams were truth!
     Magician! who from commonest elements
     Called up divine ideals, clothed upon
     By mystic lights soft blending into one
     Womanly grace and child-like innocence.
     Teacher I thy lesson was not given in vain.
     Beauty is goodness; ugliness is sin;
     Art's place is sacred: nothing foul therein
     May crawl or tread with bestial feet profane.
     If rightly choosing is the painter's test,
     Thy choice, O master, ever was the best.

     1885.

     Unnoted as the setting of a star
     He passed; and sect and party scarcely knew
     When from their midst a sage and seer withdrew
     To fitter audience, where the great dead are
     In God's republic of the heart and mind,
     Leaving no purer, nobler soul behind.

     1886.

     Luck to the craft that bears this name of mine,
     Good fortune follow with her golden spoon
     The glazed hat and tarry pantaloon;
     And wheresoe'er her keel shall cut the brine,
     Cod, hake and haddock quarrel for her line.
     Shipped with her crew, whatever wind may blow,
     Or tides delay, my wish with her shall go,
     Fishing by proxy. Would that it might show
     At need her course, in lack of sun and star,
     Where icebergs threaten, and the sharp reefs are;
     Lift the blind fog on Anticosti's lee
     And Avalon's rock; make populous the sea
     Round Grand Manan with eager finny swarms,
     Break the long calms, and charm away the storms.

     OAK KNOLL, 23 3rd mo., 1886.

     Once more, O all-adjusting Death!
     The nation's Pantheon opens wide;
     Once more a common sorrow saith
     A strong, wise man has died.

     Faults doubtless had he. Had we not
     Our own, to question and asperse
     The worth we doubted or forgot
     Until beside his hearse?

     Ambitious, cautious, yet the man
     To strike down fraud with resolute hand;
     A patriot, if a partisan,
     He loved his native land.

     So let the mourning bells be rung,
     The banner droop its folds half way,
     And while the public pen and tongue
     Their fitting tribute pay,

     Shall we not vow above his bier
     To set our feet on party lies,
     And wound no more a living ear
     With words that Death denies?

     1886

     Dry the tears for holy Eva,
     With the blessed angels leave her;
     Of the form so soft and fair
     Give to earth the tender care.

     For the golden locks of Eva
     Let the sunny south-land give her
     Flowery pillow of repose,
     Orange-bloom and budding rose.

     In the better home of Eva
     Let the shining ones receive her,
     With the welcome-voiced psalm,
     Harp of gold and waving palm,

     All is light and peace with Eva;
     There the darkness cometh never;
     Tears are wiped, and fetters fall.
     And the Lord is all in all.

     Weep no more for happy Eva,
     Wrong and sin no more shall grieve her;
     Care and pain and weariness
     Lost in love so measureless.

     Gentle Eva, loving Eva,
     Child confessor, true believer,
     Listener at the Master's knee,
     "Suffer such to come to me."

     Oh, for faith like thine, sweet Eva,
     Lighting all the solemn river,
     And the blessings of the poor
     Wafting to the heavenly shore!
     1852

     One morning of the first sad Fall,
     Poor Adam and his bride
     Sat in the shade of Eden's wall—
     But on the outer side.

     She, blushing in her fig-leaf suit
     For the chaste garb of old;
     He, sighing o'er his bitter fruit
     For Eden's drupes of gold.

     Behind them, smiling in the morn,
     Their forfeit garden lay,
     Before them, wild with rock and thorn,
     The desert stretched away.

     They heard the air above them fanned,
     A light step on the sward,
     And lo! they saw before them stand
     The angel of the Lord!

     "Arise," he said, "why look behind,
     When hope is all before,
     And patient hand and willing mind,
     Your loss may yet restore?

     "I leave with you a spell whose power
     Can make the desert glad,
     And call around you fruit and flower
     As fair as Eden had.

     "I clothe your hands with power to lift
     The curse from off your soil;
     Your very doom shall seem a gift,
     Your loss a gain through Toil.

     "Go, cheerful as yon humming-bees,
     To labor as to play."
     White glimmering over Eden's trees
     The angel passed away.

     The pilgrims of the world went forth
     Obedient to the word,
     And found where'er they tilled the earth
     A garden of the Lord!

     The thorn-tree cast its evil fruit
     And blushed with plum and pear,
     And seeded grass and trodden root
     Grew sweet beneath their care.

     We share our primal parents' fate,
     And, in our turn and day,
     Look back on Eden's sworded gate
     As sad and lost as they.

     But still for us his native skies
     The pitying Angel leaves,
     And leads through Toil to Paradise
     New Adams and new Eves!

     This day, two hundred years ago,
     The wild grape by the river's side,
     And tasteless groundnut trailing low,
     The table of the woods supplied.

     Unknown the apple's red and gold,
     The blushing tint of peach and pear;
     The mirror of the Powow told
     No tale of orchards ripe and rare.

     Wild as the fruits he scorned to till,
     These vales the idle Indian trod;
     Nor knew the glad, creative skill,
     The joy of him who toils with God.

     O Painter of the fruits and flowers!
     We thank Thee for thy wise design
     Whereby these human hands of ours
     In Nature's garden work with Thine.

     And thanks that from our daily need
     The joy of simple faith is born;
     That he who smites the summer weed,
     May trust Thee for the autumn corn.

     Give fools their gold, and knaves their power;
     Let fortune's bubbles rise and fall;
     Who sows a field, or trains a flower,
     Or plants a tree, is more than all.

     For he who blesses most is blest;
     And God and man shall own his worth
     Who toils to leave as his bequest
     An added beauty to the earth.

     And, soon or late, to all that sow,
     The time of harvest shall be given;
     The flower shall bloom, the fruit shall grow,
     If not on earth, at last in heaven.

     As Adam did in Paradise,
     To-day the primal right we claim
     Fair mirror of the woods and skies,
     We give to thee a name.

     Lake of the pickerel!—let no more
     The echoes answer back, "Great Pond,"
     But sweet Kenoza, from thy shore
     And watching hills beyond,

     Let Indian ghosts, if such there be
     Who ply unseen their shadowy lines,
     Call back the ancient name to thee,
     As with the voice of pines.

     The shores we trod as barefoot boys,
     The nutted woods we wandered through,
     To friendship, love, and social joys
     We consecrate anew.

     Here shall the tender song be sung,
     And memory's dirges soft and low,
     And wit shall sparkle on the tongue,
     And mirth shall overflow,

     Harmless as summer lightning plays
     From a low, hidden cloud by night,
     A light to set the hills ablaze,
     But not a bolt to smite.

     In sunny South and prairied West
     Are exiled hearts remembering still,
     As bees their hive, as birds their nest,
     The homes of Haverhill.

     They join us in our rites to-day;
     And, listening, we may hear, erelong,
     From inland lake and ocean bay,
     The echoes of our song.

     Kenoza! o'er no sweeter lake
     Shall morning break or noon-cloud sail,—
     No fairer face than thine shall take
     The sunset's golden veil.

     Long be it ere the tide of trade
     Shall break with harsh-resounding din
     The quiet of thy banks of shade,
     And hills that fold thee in.

     Still let thy woodlands hide the hare,
     The shy loon sound his trumpet-note,
     Wing-weary from his fields of air,
     The wild-goose on thee float.

     Thy peace rebuke our feverish stir,
     Thy beauty our deforming strife;
     Thy woods and waters minister
     The healing of their life.

     And sinless Mirth, from care released,
     Behold, unawed, thy mirrored sky,
     Smiling as smiled on Cana's feast
     The Master's loving eye.

     And when the summer day grows dim,
     And light mists walk thy mimic sea,
     Revive in us the thought of Him
     Who walked on Galilee!

     The Persian's flowery gifts, the shrine
     Of fruitful Ceres, charm no more;
     The woven wreaths of oak and pine
     Are dust along the Isthmian shore.

     But beauty hath its homage still,
     And nature holds us still in debt;
     And woman's grace and household skill,
     And manhood's toil, are honored yet.

     And we, to-day, amidst our flowers
     And fruits, have come to own again
     The blessings of the summer hours,
     The early and the latter rain;

     To see our Father's hand once more
     Reverse for us the plenteous horn
     Of autumn, filled and running o'er
     With fruit, and flower, and golden corn!

     Once more the liberal year laughs out
     O'er richer stores than gems or gold;
     Once more with harvest-song and shout
     Is Nature's bloodless triumph told.

     Our common mother rests and sings,
     Like Ruth, among her garnered sheaves;
     Her lap is full of goodly things,
     Her brow is bright with autumn leaves.

     Oh, favors every year made new!
     Oh, gifts with rain and sunshine sent
     The bounty overruns our due,
     The fulness shames our discontent.

     We shut our eyes, the flowers bloom on;
     We murmur, but the corn-ears fill,
     We choose the shadow, but the sun
     That casts it shines behind us still.

     God gives us with our rugged soil
     The power to make it Eden-fair,
     And richer fruits to crown our toil
     Than summer-wedded islands bear.

     Who murmurs at his lot to-day?
     Who scorns his native fruit and bloom?
     Or sighs for dainties far away,
     Beside the bounteous board of home?

     Thank Heaven, instead, that Freedom's arm
     Can change a rocky soil to gold,—
     That brave and generous lives can warm
     A clime with northern ices cold.

     And let these altars, wreathed with flowers
     And piled with fruits, awake again
     Thanksgivings for the golden hours,
     The early and the latter rain!

     1859

     From the well-springs of Hudson, the sea-cliffs of Maine,
     Grave men, sober matrons, you gather again;
     And, with hearts warmer grown as your heads grow more cool,
     Play over the old game of going to school.

     All your strifes and vexations, your whims and complaints,
     (You were not saints yourselves, if the children of saints!)
     All your petty self-seekings and rivalries done,
     Round the dear Alma Mater your hearts beat as one!

     How widely soe'er you have strayed from the fold,
     Though your "thee" has grown "you," and your drab blue and gold,
     To the old friendly speech and the garb's sober form,
     Like the heart of Argyle to the tartan, you warm.

     But, the first greetings over, you glance round the hall;
     Your hearts call the roll, but they answer not all
     Through the turf green above them the dead cannot hear;
     Name by name, in the silence, falls sad as a tear!

     In love, let us trust, they were summoned so soon
     rom the morning of life, while we toil through its noon;
     They were frail like ourselves, they had needs like our own,
     And they rest as we rest in God's mercy alone.

     Unchanged by our changes of spirit and frame,
     Past, now, and henceforward the Lord is the same;
     Though we sink in the darkness, His arms break our fall,
     And in death as in life, He is Father of all!

     We are older: our footsteps, so light in the play
     Of the far-away school-time, move slower to-day;—
     Here a beard touched with frost, there a bald, shining crown,
     And beneath the cap's border gray mingles with brown.

     But faith should be cheerful, and trust should be glad,
     And our follies and sins, not our years, make us sad.
     Should the heart closer shut as the bonnet grows prim,
     And the face grow in length as the hat grows in brim?

     Life is brief, duty grave; but, with rain-folded wings,
     Of yesterday's sunshine the grateful heart sings;
     And we, of all others, have reason to pay
     The tribute of thanks, and rejoice on our way;

     For the counsels that turned from the follies of youth;
     For the beauty of patience, the whiteness of truth;
     For the wounds of rebuke, when love tempered its edge;
     For the household's restraint, and the discipline's hedge;

     For the lessons of kindness vouchsafed to the least
     Of the creatures of God, whether human or beast,
     Bringing hope to the poor, lending strength to the frail,
     In the lanes of the city, the slave-hut, and jail;

     For a womanhood higher and holier, by all
     Her knowledge of good, than was Eve ere her fall,—
     Whose task-work of duty moves lightly as play,
     Serene as the moonlight and warm as the day;

     And, yet more, for the faith which embraces the whole,
     Of the creeds of the ages the life and the soul,
     Wherein letter and spirit the same channel run,
     And man has not severed what God has made one!

     For a sense of the Goodness revealed everywhere,
     As sunshine impartial, and free as the air;
     For a trust in humanity, Heathen or Jew,
     And a hope for all darkness the Light shineth through.

     Who scoffs at our birthright?—the words of the seers,
     And the songs of the bards in the twilight of years,
     All the foregleams of wisdom in santon and sage,
     In prophet and priest, are our true heritage.

     The Word which the reason of Plato discerned;
     The truth, as whose symbol the Mithra-fire burned;
     The soul of the world which the Stoic but guessed,
     In the Light Universal the Quaker confessed!

     No honors of war to our worthies belong;
     Their plain stem of life never flowered into song;
     But the fountains they opened still gush by the way,
     And the world for their healing is better to-day.

     He who lies where the minster's groined arches curve down
     To the tomb-crowded transept of England's renown,
     The glorious essayist, by genius enthroned,
     Whose pen as a sceptre the Muses all owned,—

     Who through the world's pantheon walked in his pride,
     Setting new statues up, thrusting old ones aside,
     And in fiction the pencils of history dipped,
     To gild o'er or blacken each saint in his crypt,—

     How vainly he labored to sully with blame
     The white bust of Penn, in the niche of his fame!
     Self-will is self-wounding, perversity blind
     On himself fell the stain for the Quaker designed!

     For the sake of his true-hearted father before him;
     For the sake of the dear Quaker mother that bore him;
     For the sake of his gifts, and the works that outlive him,
     And his brave words for freedom, we freely forgive him!

     There are those who take note that our numbers are small,—
     New Gibbons who write our decline and our fall;
     But the Lord of the seed-field takes care of His own,
     And the world shall yet reap what our sowers have sown.

     The last of the sect to his fathers may go,
     Leaving only his coat for some Barnum to show;
     But the truth will outlive him, and broaden with years,
     Till the false dies away, and the wrong disappears.

     Nothing fails of its end. Out of sight sinks the stone,
     In the deep sea of time, but the circles sweep on,
     Till the low-rippled murmurs along the shores run,
     And the dark and dead waters leap glad in the sun.

     Meanwhile shall we learn, in our ease, to forget
     To the martyrs of Truth and of Freedom our debt?—
     Hide their words out of sight, like the garb that they wore,
     And for Barclay's Apology offer one more?

     Shall we fawn round the priestcraft that glutted the shears,
     And festooned the stocks with our grandfathers' ears?
     Talk of Woolman's unsoundness? count Penn heterodox?
     And take Cotton Mather in place of George Fox?

     Make our preachers war-chaplains? quote Scripture to take
     The hunted slave back, for Onesimus' sake?
     Go to burning church-candles, and chanting in choir,
     And on the old meeting-house stick up a spire?

     No! the old paths we'll keep until better are shown,
     Credit good where we find it, abroad or our own;
     And while "Lo here" and "Lo there" the multitude call,
     Be true to ourselves, and do justice to all.

     The good round about us we need not refuse,
     Nor talk of our Zion as if we were Jews;
     But why shirk the badge which our fathers have worn,
     Or beg the world's pardon for having been born?

     We need not pray over the Pharisee's prayer,
     Nor claim that our wisdom is Benjamin's share;
     Truth to us and to others is equal and one
     Shall we bottle the free air, or hoard up the sun?

     Well know we our birthright may serve but to show
     How the meanest of weeds in the richest soil grow;
     But we need not disparage the good which we hold;
     Though the vessels be earthen, the treasure is gold!

     Enough and too much of the sect and the name.
     What matters our label, so truth be our aim?
     The creed may be wrong, but the life may be true,
     And hearts beat the same under drab coats or blue.

     So the man be a man, let him worship, at will,
     In Jerusalem's courts, or on Gerizim's hill.
     When she makes up her jewels, what cares yon good town
     For the Baptist of Wayland, the Quaker of Brown?

     And this green, favored island, so fresh and seablown,
     When she counts up the worthies her annals have known,
     Never waits for the pitiful gaugers of sect
     To measure her love, and mete out her respect.

     Three shades at this moment seem walking her strand,
     Each with head halo-crowned, and with palms in his hand,—
     Wise Berkeley, grave Hopkins, and, smiling serene
     On prelate and puritan, Channing is seen.

     One holy name bearing, no longer they need
     Credentials of party, and pass-words of creed
     The new song they sing hath a threefold accord,
     And they own one baptism, one faith, and one Lord!

     But the golden sands run out: occasions like these
     Glide swift into shadow, like sails on the seas
     While we sport with the mosses and pebbles ashore,
     They lessen and fade, and we see them no more.

     Forgive me, dear friends, if my vagrant thoughts seem
     Like a school-boy's who idles and plays with his theme.
     Forgive the light measure whose changes display
     The sunshine and rain of our brief April day.

     There are moments in life when the lip and the eye
     Try the question of whether to smile or to cry;
     And scenes and reunions that prompt like our own
     The tender in feeling, the playful in tone.

     I, who never sat down with the boys and the girls
     At the feet of your Slocums, and Cartlands, and Earles,—
     By courtesy only permitted to lay
     On your festival's altar my poor gift, to-day,—

     I would joy in your joy: let me have a friend's part
     In the warmth of your welcome of hand and of heart,—
     On your play-ground of boyhood unbend the brow's care,
     And shift the old burdens our shoulders must bear.

     Long live the good School! giving out year by year
     Recruits to true manhood and womanhood dear
     Brave boys, modest maidens, in beauty sent forth,
     The living epistles and proof of its worth!

     In and out let the young life as steadily flow
     As in broad Narragansett the tides come and go;
     And its sons and its daughters in prairie and town
     Remember its honor, and guard its renown.

     Not vainly the gift of its founder was made;
     Not prayerless the stones of its corner were laid
     The blessing of Him whom in secret they sought
     Has owned the good work which the fathers have wrought.

     To Him be the glory forever! We bear
     To the Lord of the Harvest our wheat with the tare.
     What we lack in our work may He find in our will,
     And winnow in mercy our good from the ill!