And where are the foes who so vauntingly sworeThat the havoc of war, and the battle's confusion,A home and a country should leave us no more?Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.No refuge could save the hireling and slaveFrom the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave;And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph doth waveO'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
O thus be it ever, when freemen shall standBetween their loved homes and the war's desolation;Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n-rescued landPraise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just;And this be our motto, "In God is our trust;"And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall waveO'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
* * * * *
=Washington Alston, 1779-1843.= (Manual, pp. 504. 510.)
From the "Sylphs of the Seasons."
=325.=
Methought, within a desert cave,Cold, dark, and solemn as the grave,I suddenly awoke.It seemed of sable night the cellWhere, save when from the ceiling fellAn oozing drop, her silent spellNo sound had ever broke.
There motionless I stood alone,Like some strange monument of stoneUpon a barren wild;Or like (so solid and profoundThe darkness seemed that walled me round)A man that's buried under ground,Where pyramids are piled.
* * * * *
Then spake the Sylph of Spring serene,"'Tis I thy joyous heart, I ween.With sympathy shall move:For I with living melodyOf birds in choral symphony,First waked thy soul to poesy,To piety and love.
"When thou, at call of vernal breeze,And beckoning bough of budding trees,Hast left thy sullen fire;And stretched thee in some mossy dell,And heard the browsing wether's bell,Blithe echoes rousing from their cellTo swell the tinkling choir:
"Or lured by some fresh-scented galeThat wooed the moored fisher's sailTo tempt the mighty main,Hast watched the dim, receding shore,Now faintly seen the ocean o'er,Like hanging cloud, and now no moreTo bound the sapphire plain.
"Then, wrapped in night, the scudding bark,(That seemed, self-poised amid the dark,Through upper air to leap,)Beheld, from thy most fearful height,The rapid dolphin's azure lightCleave, like a living meteor bright,The darkness of the deep."
* * * * *
=John Pierpont, 1785-1866.= (Manual, p. 513.)
In Eden's green retreats,A water-brook—that playedBetween soft, mossy seats,Beneath a plane tree's shade,Whose rustling leavesDanced o'er its brink—Was Adam's drink,And also Eve's.
* * * * *
And, when the man of GodFrom Egypt led his flock,They thirsted, and his rodSmote the Arabian rock,And forth a rillOf water gushed,And on they rushed,And drank their fill.
Had Moses built a still,And dealt out to that hostTo every man his gill,And pledged him in a toast,Would cooler brains,Or stronger hands,Have braved the sandsOf those hot plains?
If Eden's strength and bloom,Gold water thus hath given,If e'en beyond the tomb,It is the drink of heaven,Are not good wellsAnd crystal springsThe very thingsfor our Hotels?
* * * * *
The Pilgrim Fathers,—where are they?The waves that brought them o'erStill roll in the bay, and throw their spray,As they break along the shore:Still roll in the bay, as they roll'd that dayWhen the Mayflower moor'd below,When the sea around was black with storms,And white the shore with snow.
The mists, that wrapp'd the Pilgrim's sleep,Still brood upon the tide;And his rocks yet keep their watch by the deep,To stay its waves of pride.But the snow-white sail, that he gave to the galeWhen the heavens look'd dark, is gone;—As an angel's wing, through an opening cloud,Is seen, and then withdrawn.
The Pilgrim exile,—sainted name!The hill, whose icy browRejoiced when he came, in the morning's flame,In the morning's flame burns now.And the moon's cold light, as it lay that nightOn the hill-side and the sea,Still lies where he laid his houseless head;—But the Pilgrim,—where is he?
The Pilgrim Fathers are at rest.When summer's throned on high,And the world's warm breast is in verdure dress'dGo, stand on the hill where they lie.The earliest ray of the golden dayOn that hallow'd spot is cast;And the evening sun, as he leaves the world,Looks kindly on that spot last.
The Pilgrimspirithas not fled;It walks in the noon's broad light;And it watches the bed of the glorious dead,With their holy stars, by night.It watches the bed of the brave who have bled,And shall guard this ice-bound shore,Till the waves of the bay, where the Mayflower lay,Shall foam and freeze no more.
* * * * *
=James G. Percival, 1786-1856.= (Manual, p. 515.)
Deep in the wave is a coral grove,Where the purple mullet and gold-fish rove;Where the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blue,That never are wet with the falling dew,But in bright and changeful beauty shine,Far down in the green and glassy brine.The floor is of sand, like the mountain drift,And the pearl-shells spangle the flinty snow;From coral rocks, the sea-plants liftTheir boughs, where the tides and billows flow;The water is calm and still below,For the winds and waves are absent there,And the sands are bright as the stars that glowIn the motionless fields of upper air.There, with its waving blade of green,The sea-flag streams through the silent water,And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seenTo blush like a banner bathed in slaughter.There, with a light and easy motion,The fan-coral sweeps through the clear, deep sea,And the yellow and scarlet tufts of oceanAre bending like corn on the upland lea,And life, in rare and beautiful forms,Is sporting amid those bowers of stone.
* * * * *
=Richard H. Dana, 1787-.= (Manual, pp. 501, 504, 514.)
From "The Buccaneer."
=329.=
A sweet, low voice, in starry nights,Chants to his ear a 'plaining song;Its tones come winding up the heights,Telling of woe and wrong;And he must listen, till the stars grow dim,The song that gentle voice doth sing to him.
O, it is sad that aught so mildShould bind the soul with bands of fear;That strains to soothe a little childThe man should dread to hear!But sin hath broke the world's sweet peace, unstrungThe harmonious chords to which the angels sung.
* * * * *
But he no more shall haunt the beach,Nor sit upon the tall cliff's crown,Nor go the round of all that reach,Nor feebly sit him down,Watching the swaying weeds; another day,And he'll have gone far hence that dreadful way.
To-night the charméd number's told."Twice have I come for thee," it said."Once more, and none shall thee behold.Come, live one, to the dead!"So hears his soul, and fears the coming night,Yet sick and weary of the soft, calm light.
Again he sits within that room;All day he leans at that still board;None to bring comfort to his gloom,Or speak a friendly word.Weakened with fear, lone, haunted by remorse,Poor, shattered wretch, there waits he that pale horse.
* * * * *
=Richard Henry Wilde, 1789-.= (Manual, pp. 521, 501.)
My life is like the summer roseThat opens to the morning sky,But, ere the shades of evening close,Is scattered on the ground to die;Yet on that rose's humble bedThe softest dews, of night are shed,As if she wept such waste to see;But none shall drop a tear for me.
My life is like the autumn leafThat trembles in the moon's pale ray;Its hold is frail, its state is brief,Restless, and soon to pass away;But when that leaf shall fall and fade,The parent tree will mourn its shade,The winds bewail the leafless tree;But none shall breathe a sigh, for me.
My life is like the print which feetHave left on Tampa's desert strand;Soon as the rising tide shall beat,Their track will vanish from the sand;Yet, as if grieving to effaceAll vestige of the human race,On that lone shore loud moans the sea;But none shall thus lament for me.
* * * * *
=James A. Hillhouse, 1789-1844.= (Manual, p. 487.)
From "Hadad."
=331.=
Hadad.Confide in me.I can transport thee, O, to a paradiseTo which this Canaan is a darksome span.Beings shall welcome, serve thee, lovely as angels;The elemental powers shall stoop, the seaDisclose her wonders, and receive thy feetInto her sapphire chambers; orbéd cloudsShall chariot thee from zone to zone, while earth,A dwindled, islet, floats beneath thee. EverySeason and clime shall blend for thee the garland.The Abyss of time shall cast its secrets, ereThe flood marred primal nature, ere this orbStood in her station. Thou shalt know the stars,The houses of eternity, their names,Their courses, destiny—all marvels high.
Tam.Talk not so madly.
* * * * *
From "The Judgment."
=332.=
As, when from some proud capital that crownsImperial Ganges, the reviving breezeSweeps the dank mist, or hoary river fogImpervious mantled o'er her highest towers,Bright on the eye rush Bramah's temples, capp'dWith spiry tops, gay-trellised minarets,Pagods of gold, and mosques with burnish'd domes,Gilded, and glistening in the morning sun,So from the hill the cloudy curtains roll'd,And, in the lingering lustre of the eve,Again the Saviour and his seraphs shone.Emitted sudden in his rising, flash'dIntenser light, as toward the right hand hostMild turning, with a look ineffable,The invitation he proclaim'd in accentsWhich on their ravish'd ears pour'd thrilling, likeThe silver sound of many trumpets, heardAfar in sweetest jubilee: then, swiftStretching his dreadful sceptre to the left,That shot forth horrid lightnings, in a voiceClothed but in half its terrors, yet to themSeem'd like the crush of heaven, pronounced the doom.The sentence utter'd as with life instinct,The throne uprose majestically slow;Each angel spread his wings; in one dread swellOf triumph mingling as they mounted, trumpetsAnd harps, and golden lyres, and timbrels sweet,And many a strange and deep-toned instrumentOf heavenly minstrelsy unknown on earth,And angels' voices, and the loud acclaimOf all the ransom'd like a thunder shout,Far through the skies melodious echoes roll'dAnd faint hosannas distant climes return'd.
* * * * *
=John M. Harney,[79] 1789-1855.=
From "Crystallina: a Fairy Tale."
=333.=
On the stormy heath a ring they form;They place therein the fearful maid,And round her dance in the howling storm.The winds beat hard on her lovely head:But she clasped her hands, and nothing said.
O, 'twas, I ween, a ghastly sightTo see their uncouth revelry.The lightning was the taper bright,The thunder was the melody,To which they danced with horrid glee.
The fierce-eyed owl did on them scowl,The bat played round on leathern wing,The coal-black wolf did at them howl,The coal-black raven did croak and sing,And o'er them flap his dusky wing.
An earthquake heaved beneath their feet,Pale meteors revelled in the sky,The clouds sailed by like a routed fleet,The night-winds shrieked as they passed by,The dark-red moon was eclipsed on high.
[Footnote 79: One of the earliest poets of the West, but a native ofDelaware.]
* * * * *
=Charles Sprague, 1791-.= (Manual, p. 514.)
From "Curiosity."
Turn to the Press—its teeming sheets survey,Big with the wonders of each passing day;Births, deaths, and weddings, forgeries, fires, and wrecks,Harangues and hailstorms, brawls and broken necks;Where half-fledged bards, on feeble pinions, seekAn immortality of near a week;Where cruel eulogists the dead restore,In maudlin praise, to martyr them once more;Where ruffian slanderers wreak their coward spite,And need no venomed dagger while they write.
* * * * *
Yet, sweet or bitter, hence what fountains burst,While still the more we drink the more we thirst.Trade hardly deems the busy day begunTill his keen eye along the page has run;The blooming daughter throws her needle by,And reads her schoolmate's marriage with a sigh;While the grave mother puts her glasses on,And gives a tear to some old crony gone.The preacher, too, his Sunday theme lays down.To know what last new folly fills the town.Lively or sad, life's meanest, mightiest things,The fate of fighting cocks, or fighting kings—Nought comes amiss; we take the nauseous stuff,Verjuice or oil, a libel or a puff.
* * * * *
=Lydia H. Sigourney, 1791-1865.= (Manual, pp. 484, 523.)
Deal gently, thou whose hand hath wonThe young bird from its nest away,Where, careless, 'neath a vernal sun,She gayly carolled day by day;The haunt is lone, the heart must grieve,From where her timid wing doth soarThey pensive lisp at hush of eve,Yet hear her gushing song no more.
Deal gently with her; thou art dear,Beyond what vestal lips have told,And, like a lamb from fountains clear,She turns, confiding, to thy fold.She round thy sweet, domestic bowerThe wreath of changeless love shall twine,Watch for thy step at vesper hour,And blend her holiest prayer with thine.
Deal gently, thou, when, far away,'Mid stranger scenes her foot shall rove,Nor let thy tender care decay;The soul of woman lives in love.And shouldst thou, wondering, mark a tear,Unconscious, from her eyelids break,Be pitiful, and soothe the fearThat man's strong heart may ne'er partake.
A mother yields her gem to thee,On thy true breast to sparkle rare;She places 'neath thy household treeThe idol of her fondest care;And, by thy trust to be forgivenWhen judgment wakes in terror wild,By all thy treasured hopes of heaven,Deal gently with the widow's child.
* * * * *
=William O. Sutler,[80] 1793-.=
From "The Boatman's Horn."
=336.=
O Boatman, wind that horn again;For never did the listening airUpon its lambent bosom bearSo wild, so soft, so sweet a strain.What though thy notes are sad and few,By, every simple boatman blown?Yet is each pulse to nature true,And melody in every tone.How oft, in boyhood's joyous day,Unmindful of the lapsing hours,I've loitered on my homeward way,By wild Ohio's bank of flowers,While some lone boatman from the deckPoured his soft numbers to that tide,As if to charm from storm and wreckThe boat where all his fortunes ride!Delighted Nature drank the sound,Enchanted Echo bore it roundIn whispers soft and softer still,From hill to plain, and plain to hill.
[Footnote 80: A native of Kentucky; a favorite Western poet; at one time prominent as a politician.]
* * * * *
The battle's o'er; the din is past;Night's mantle on the field is cast;The Indian yell is heard no more;The silence broods o'er Erie's shore.At this lone hour I go to treadThe field where valor vainly bled;To raise the wounded warrior's crest,Or warm with tears his icy breast;To treasure up his last command,And bear it to his native land.It may one pulse of joy impartTo a fond mother's bleeding heart,Or, for a moment, it may dryThe tear-drop in the widow's eye.Vain hopes, away! The widow ne'erHer warrior's dying wish shall hear.The passing zephyr bears no sigh;No wounded warrior meets the eye;Death is his sleep by Erie's wave;Of Raisin's snow we heap his grave.How many hopes lie buried here—The mother's joy, the father's pride,The country's boast, the foeman's fear,In 'wildered havoc, side by side!Lend me, thou silent queen of night,Lend me a while thy waning light,That I may see each well-loved formThat sank beneath the morning storm.
* * * * *
=William Cullen Bryant, 1794-.= (Manual, pp. 487, 524.)
From his "Poems."
Whither, midst falling dew,While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursueThy solitary way?
Vainly the fowler's eyeMight mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,As, darkly seen against the crimson sky,Thy figure floats along.
Seek'st thou the plashy brinkOf weedy lake, or marge of river wide,Or where the rocking billows rise and sinkOn the chafed ocean side?
There is a Power whose careTeaches thy way along that pathless coast,—The desert and illimitable air,—Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fanned,At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,Though the dark night is near.
And soon that toil shall end,Soon shalt thou find a summer home and rest,And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bendSoon, o'er thy sheltered nest.
Thou'rt gone; the abyss of heavenHath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heartDeeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,And shall not soon depart.
He who, from zone to zone,Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,In the long way that I must tread alone,Will lead my steps aright.
* * * * *
From "The Antiquity of Freedom."
O Freedom, thou art not, as poets dream,A fair, young girl, with light and delicate limbs,And wavy tresses gushing from the capWith which the Roman master crowned his slaveWhen he took off the gyves. A bearded man,Armed to the teeth, art thou; one mailéd handGrasps the broad shield, and one the sword; thy brow,Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarredWith tokens of old wars; thy massive limbsAre strong with struggling. Power at thee has launchedHis bolts, and with his lightnings smitten thee.They could not quench the life thou hast from heaven.Merciless power has dug thy dungeon deep,And his swart armorers, by a thousand fires,Have forged thy chain; yet, while he deems thee bound,The links are shivered, and the prison wallsFall outward; terribly thou springest forth,As springs the flame above a burning pile,And shoutest to the nations, who returnThy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies.
* * * * *
From "Thanatopsis."
To him who in the love of Nature holdsCommunion with her visible forms, she speaksA various language: for his gayer hoursShe has a voice of gladness, and a smile,An eloquence of beauty, and she glidesInto his darker musings, with a mildAnd healing sympathy, that steals awayTheir sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughtsOf the last bitter hour come like a blightOver thy spirit, and sad imagesOf the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,And breathless darkness, and the narrow house.Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;—Go forth, under the open sky, and listTo Nature's teachings, while from all around—Earth and her waters, and the depths of air,—Comes a still voice. Yet a few days, and theeThe all-beholding sun shall see no moreIn all his course; nor yet in the cold ground.Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall existThy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claimThy growth, to be resolved to earth again,And lost each human trace, surrendering upThine individual being, shalt thou goTo mix for ever with the elements,To be a brother to the insensible rock,And to the sluggish clod which the rude swainTurns with his share, and treads upon. The oakShall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
* * * * *
As the long trainOf ages glide away, the sons of men,The youth in life's green spring, and he who goesIn the full strength of years, matron, and maid,And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man,—Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,By those, who in their turn shall follow them.So live, that when thy summons comes to joinThe innumerable caravan, that movesTo that mysterious realm where each shall takeHis chamber in the silent halls of death,Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night,Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothedBy an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,Like one who wraps the drapery of his couchAbout him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
* * * * *
Matron! the children of whose love,Each to his grave, in youth had passed,and now the mould is heaped aboveThe dearest and the last!Bride! who dost wear the widow's veilBefore the wedding flowers are pale!Ye deem the human heart enduresNo deeper, bitterer grief than yours.
Yet there are pangs of keener wo,Of which the sufferers never speak,Nor to the world's cold pity showThe tears that scald the cheek,Wrung from their eyelids by the shameAnd guilt of those they shrink to name,Whom once they loved with cheerful will,And love, though fallen and branded, still.
Weep, ye who sorrow for the dead;Thus breaking hearts their pain relieve;And reverenced are the tears ye shed.And honored ye who grieve.The praise of those who sleep in earth,The pleasant memory of their worth,The hope to meet when life is past,Shall heal the tortured mind at last.
But ye, who for the living lostThat agony in secret bear,Who shall with soothing words accostThe strength of your despair?Grief for your sake is scorn for themWhom ye lament, and all condemn;And o'er the world of spirits liesA gloom from which ye turn your eyes.
* * * * *
Brethren, the sower's task is done.The seed is in its Winter bed.Now let the dark-brown mould be spread,To hide it from the sun,And leave it to the kindly careOf the still earth and brooding air.As when the mother, from her breast,Lays the hushed babe apart to rest,And shades its eyes, and waits to seeHow sweet its waking smile will be.The tempest now may smite, the sleetAll night on the drowned furrow beat,And winds that from the cloudy holdOf winter, breathe the bitter cold,Stiffen to stone the yellow-mould,Yet safe shall lie the wheat;Till, out of heaven's unmeasured blue,Shall walk again the genial year,To wake with warmth, and nurse with dew,The germs we lay to slumber here.O blessed harvest yet to be!Abide thou with the love that keeps,In its warm bosom tenderly,The life which wakes, and that which sleeps.The love that leads the willing spheresAlong the unending track of years,And watches o'er the sparrow's nest,Shall brood above thy winter rest,And raise thee from the dust, to holdLight whisperings with the winds of May;And fill thy spikes with living gold,From Summer's yellow ray.Then, as thy garners give thee forth,On what glad errands shalt thou go,Wherever, o'er the waiting earth,Roads wind, and rivers flow!The ancient East shall welcome theeTo mighty marts beyond the sea;And they who dwell where palm-groves soundTo summer winds the whole year round,Shall watch, in gladness, from the shore,The sails that bring thy glistening store.
* * * * *
Come, let us plant the apple-tree!Cleave the tough greensward with the spade;Wide let its hollow bed be made;There gently lay the roots, and thereSift the dark mould with kindly care,And press it o'er them tenderly,As, round the sleeping infant's feet,We softly fold the cradle-sheet:So plant we the apple-tree.
What plant we in the apple-tree?Buds, which the breath of summer daysShall lengthen into leafy sprays;Boughs, where the thrush with crimson breastShall haunt and sing and hide her nest.We plant upon the sunny leaA shadow for the noontide hour,A shelter from the summer shower,When we plant the apple-tree.
What plant we in the apple-tree?Sweets for a hundred flowery springs,To load the May-wind's restless wings,When, from the orchard-row, he poursIts fragrance through our open doors;A world of blossoms for the bee;Flowers for the sick girl's silent room;For the glad infant, sprigs of bloom,We plant with the apple-tree.
What plant we in the apple-tree?Fruits that shall swell in sunny June,And redden in the August noon,And drop as gentle airs come byThat fan the blue September sky;While children, wild with noisy glee,Shall scent their fragrance as they pass,And search for them the tufted grassAt the foot of the apple-tree.
And when above this apple-treeThe winter stars are quivering bright,And winds go howling through the night,Girls, whose young eyes o'erflow with mirth,Shall peel its fruit by cottage-hearth,And guests in prouder homes shall see,Heaped with the orange and the grape,As fair as they in tint and shape,The fruit of the apple-tree.
The fruitage of this apple-tree,Winds, and our flag of stripe and star,Shall bear to coasts that lie afar,Where men shall wonder at the view,And ask in what fair groves they grew;And they who roam beyond the sea,Shall look, and think of childhood's day,And long hours passed in summer playIn the shade of the apple-tree.
Each year shall give this apple-treeA broader flush of roseate bloom,A deeper maze of verdurous gloom,And loosen, when the frost-clouds lower,The crisp brown leaves in thicker shower;The years shall come and pass, but weShall hear no longer, where we lie,The summer's songs, the autumn's sigh,In the boughs of the apple-tree.
And time shall waste this apple tree.Oh, when its aged branches throwThin shadows on the sward below,Shall fraud and force and iron-willOppress the weak and helpless still?What shall the tasks of mercy be,Amid the toils, the strifes, the tearsOf those who live when length of yearsIs wasting this apple-tree?
"Who planted this old apple-tree?"The children of that distant dayThus to some aged man shall say;And gazing on its mossy stem,The gray-haired man shall answer them:"A poet of the land was he.Born in the rude, but good, old times;'Tis said he made some quaint old rhymesOn planting the apple-tree."
* * * * *
=Maria Brooks, 1795-1845.= (Manual, p. 523.)
The bard has sung, God never formed a soulWithout its own peculiar mate, to meetIts wandering half, when ripe to crown the wholeBright plan of bliss, most heavenly, most complete!
But thousand evil things there are that hateTo look on happiness: these hurt, impede,And, leagued with time, space, circumstance, and fate,Keep kindred heart from heart, to pine, and pant, and bleed.
And as the dove to far Palmyra flying,From where her native founts of Antioch beam,Weary, exhausted, longing, panting, sighing,Lights sadly at the desert's bitter stream;
So, many a soul, o'er life's drear desert faring,Love's pure, congenial spring unfound, unquaffed,Suffers, recoils, then thirsty and despairingOf what it would, descends, and sips the nearest draught.
* * * * *
=Joseph Rodman Drake, 1795-1820.= (Manual, p. 517.)
From "The Culprit Fay."
* * * * *
The moon looks down on old Crow-nest,She mellows the shades, on his shaggy breast,And seems his huge grey form to throwIn a silver cone on the wave below;His sides are broken by spots of shade,By the walnut bough and the cedar made,And through their clustering branches darkGlimmers and dies the fire-fly's spark—Like starry twinkles that momently break,Through the rifts of the gathering tempest's rack.
The stars are on the moving stream,And fling, as its ripples gently flow,A burnished length of wavy beamIn an eel-like, spiral line below;The winds are whist, and the owl is still,The bat in the shelvy rock is hid.And naught is heard on the lonely hillBut the cricket's chirp, and the answer shrillOf the gauze-winged katy-did;And the plaint of the wailing whip-poor-will,Who mourns unseen, and ceaseless sings,Ever a note of wail and woe,Till morning spreads her rosy wings,And earth and sky in her glances grow.
The moth-fly, as he shot in air,Crept under the leaf, and hid her there;The katy-did forgot its lay,The prowling gnat fled fast away,The fell mosquito checked his droneAnd folded his wings till the Fay was gone,And the wily beetle dropped his head,And fell on the ground as if he were dead;They crouched them close in the darksome shade,They quaked all o'er with awe and fear,For they had felt the blue-bent blade,And writhed at the prick of the elfin spear;Many a time on a summer's night.When the sky was clear, and the moon was bright,They had been roused from the haunted ground,By the yelp and bay of the fairy hound;They had heard the tiny bugle-horn,They had heard the twang of the maize-silk string,When the vine-twig bows were tightly drawn,And the nettle shaft through air was borne,Feathered with down of the hum-bird's wing.And now they deemed the courier-ouphe,Some hunter sprite of the elfin ground;And they watched till they saw him mount the roofThat canopies the world around;Then glad they left their covert lair,And freaked about in the midnight air.
* * * * *
=Fitz-Greene Halleck, 1795-1869.= (Manual, p. 515.)
At midnight, in his guarded tent,The Turk was dreaming of the hourWhen Greece, her knee in suppliance bent,Should tremble at his power;In dreams, through camp and court he boreThe trophies of a conqueror;In dreams his song of triumph heard;Then wore his monarch's signet ring:Then pressed that monarch's throne—a king;As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing,As Eden's garden bird.
At midnight, in the forest shades,Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band,True as the steel of their tried blades,Heroes in heart and hand.There had the Persian thousands stood,There had the glad earth drunk their bloodOn old Platoea's day;And now there breathed that haunted airThe sons of sires that conquer'd there,With arm to strike and soul to dare,As quick, as far as they.
An hour pass'd on—the Turk awoke;That bright dream was his last;He woke to hear his sentries shriek,"To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!"He woke—to die, midst flame, and smoke,And shout, and groan, and sabre-stroke,And death-shots, falling thick and fastAs lightnings from the mountain-cloud;And heard, with voice as trumpet loud,Bozzaris cheer his band:"Strike—till the last arm'd foe expires;Strike—for your altars and your fires;Strike—for the green graves of your sires:God, and your native land!"
They fought—like brave men, long and well;They piled that ground with Moslem slain;They conquer'd—but Bozzaris fell,Bleeding at every vein.His few surviving comrades saw—His smile when rang their proud hurrah,And the red field was won:Then saw in death his eyelids closeCalmly, as to a night's reposeLike flowers at set of sun.
Come to the bridal chamber, Death!Come to the mother's, when she feels,For the first time, her first-born's breath;Come when the blessed sealsThat close the pestilence, are broke,And crowded cities wail its stroke;Come in consumption's ghastly form,The earthquake shock, the ocean storm;Come when the heart beats high and warm,With banquet-song, and dance, and wine;And thou art terrible: the tear,The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier,And all we know, or dream, or fear,Of agony, are thine.
But to the hero, when his swordHas won the battle for the free,Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word;And in its hollow tones are heardThe thanks of millions yet to be.Come, when his task of fame is wrought—Come, with her laurel-leaf blood-bought—Come, in her crowning hour—and thenThy sunken eye's unearthly lightTo him is welcome as the sightOf sky and stars to prison'd men:Thy grasp is welcome as the handOf brother in a foreign land;Thy summons welcome as the cryThat told the Indian isles were nigh,To the world-seeking Genoese;When the land-wind from woods of palm,And orange-groves, and fields of balm,Blew o'er the Haytian seas.
Bozzaris! with the storied braveGreece nurtured in her glory's time,Rest thee—there is no prouder grave,E'en in her own proud clime.Site wore no funeral weeds for thee,Nor bade the dark hearse wave its plume,Like torn branch, from death's leafless tree,In sorrow's pomp and pageantry,The heartless luxury of the tomb:But she remembers thee as oneLong loved and for a season gone,For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed,Her marble wrought, her music breathed:For thee she rings the birth-day bells;Of thee her babes' first lisping tells,For thine, her evening prayer is saidAt palace couch, and cottage bed;Her soldier, closing with the foe,Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow;His plighted maiden, when she fearsFor him, the joy of her young years,Thinks of thy fate, and checks her tears.And she, the mother of thy boys,Though in her eye and faded cheekIs read the grief she will not speak,The memory of her buried joys,And even she who gave thee birth,Will by their pilgrim-circled hearth,Talk of thy doom without a sigh:For thou art Freedom's now, and Fame's,One of the few, the immortal names,That were not born to die.
* * * * *
From "Fanny."
Fanny! 'twas with her name my song began;'Tis proper and polite her name should end it;If in my story of her woes, or planOr moral can be traced, 'twas not intended;And if I've wronged her, I can only tell herI'm sorry for it—so is my bookseller.
* * * * *
Her father sent to Albany a prayerFor office, told how fortune had abused him,And modestly requested to be mayor—The council very civilly refused him;Because, however much they might desire it,The "public good," it seems, did not require it.
Some evenings since, he took a lonely strollAlong Broadway, scene of past joys and evils;He felt that withering bitterness of soul,Quaintly denominated the "blue devils;"And thought of Bonaparte and Belisarius,Pompey, and Colonel Burr, and Caius Marius.
And envying the loud playfulness and mirth.Of those who passed him, gay in youth and hope,He took at Jupiter a shilling's worthOf gazing, through the showman's telescope;Sounds as of far-off bells came on his ears,He fancied 'twas the music of the spheres.
He was mistaken, it was no such thing,'Twas Yankee Doodle, played by Scudder's band;He muttered, as he lingered listening,Something of freedom and our happy land;Then sketched, as to his home he hurried fast,This sentimental song—his saddest and his last.
* * * * *
=John G.C. Brainard, 1796-1828.= (Manual, p. 523.)
From Lines "To the Connecticut River."
From that lone lake, the sweetest of the chain,That links the mountain to the mighty main,Fresh from the rock and swelling by the tree,Rushing to meet, and dare, and breast the sea—Fair, noble, glorious river! in thy waveThe sunniest slopes and sweetest pastures lave;The mountain torrent, with its wintry roar,Springs from its home and leaps upon thy shore:The promontories love thee—and for thisTurn their rough cheeks, and stay thee for thy kiss.
* * * * *
Dark as the forest leaves that strew the ground,The Indian hunter here his shelter found;Here cut his bow and shaped his arrows true,Here built his wigwam and his bark canoe,Speared the quick salmon leaping up the fall,And slew the deer without the rifle-ball.
* * * * *
What Art can execute, or Taste devise,Decks thy fair course and gladdens in thine eyes—As broader sweep the bendings of thy stream,To meet the southern sun's more constant beam.Here cities rise, and sea-washed commerce hailsThy shores and winds with all her flapping sails,From Tropic isles, or from the torrid main—Where grows the grape, or sprouts the sugar-cane—Or from the haunts where the striped haddock play,By each cold northern bank and frozen bay.Here, safe returned from every stormy sea,Waves the striped flag, the mantle of the free—That star-lit flag, by all the breezes curledOf yon vast deep whose waters grasp the world.
* * * * *
=Robert C. Sands, 1799-1832.= (Manual, p. 504.)
From "Weehawken."
Eve o'er our path is stealing fast:Yon quivering splendors are the lastThe sun will fling, to tremble o'erThe waves that kiss the opposing shore;His latest glories fringe the heightBehind us, with their golden light.
* * * * *
Yet should the stranger ask what loreOf by-gone days, this winding shore,Yon cliffs, and fir-clad steeps, could tellIf vocal made by Fancy's spell,The varying legend might rehearseFit themes for high romantic verse.
O'er yon rough heights and moss-clad sodOft hath the stalwart warrior trod;Or peered with hunter's gaze, to markThe progress of the glancing bark.Spoils, strangely won on distant waves.Have lurked in yon obstructed caves.
When the great strife for Freedom rose,Here scouted oft her friends and foes,Alternate, through the changeful war,And beacon-fires flashed bright and far;And here, when Freedom's strife was won,Fell, in sad feud, her favored son;—
Her son,—the second of the band,The Romans of the rescued land.Where round yon capes the banks descend,Long shall the pilgrim's footsteps bend;There, mirthful hearts shall pause to sighThere, tears shall dim the patriot's eye.
There last he stood. Before his sightFlowed the fair river, free and bright;The rising Mart, and isles and bay,Before him in their glory lay,—Scenes of his love and of his fame,—The instant ere the death-shot came.
* * * * *
=George W. Doane, 1799-1859.= (Manual, p. 523.)
From "Evening."
=350.=
Softly now the light of dayFades upon my sight away;Free from care, from labor free,Lord, I would commune with thee.
Thou, whose all-pervading eyeNought escapes, without, within,Pardon each infirmity,Open fault, and secret sin.
Soon for me the light of dayShall forever pass away;Then, from sin and sorrow free,Take me, Lord, to dwell with thee!
Thou who sinless, yet hast knownAll of man's infirmity;Then, from thy eternal throne,Jesus, look with pitying eye.
* * * * *
=George P. Morris, 1801-1864.= (Manual, p. 523.)
Where Hudson's wave o'er silvery sandsWinds through the hills afar,Old Crow-nest like a monarch stands,Crowned with, a single star.And there amid the billowy swellsOf rock-ribbed, cloud-capped earth,My fair and gentle Ida dwells,A nymph of mountain birth.
The snow-flake that the cliff receives—The diamonds of the showers—Spring's tender blossoms, buds, and leaves—The sisterhood of flowers—Morn's early beam, eve's balmy breeze—Her purity define;—But Ida's dearer far than theseTo this fond breast of mine.
* * * * *
=George D. Prentice, 1802-1869.= (Manual, p. 487.)
From "The Mammoth Cave."
All day, as day is reckoned on the earth,I've wandered in these dim and awful aisles,Shut from the blue and breezy dome of heaven,… And nowI'll sit me down upon yon broken rock,To muse upon the strange and solemn thingsOf this mysterious realm.All day my stepsHave been amid the beautiful, the wild,The gloomy, the terrific; crystal fountsAlmost invisible in their sereneAnd pure transparency, high pillared domesWith stars and flowers, all fretted like the hallsOf Oriental monarchs—rivers dark,And drear, and voiceless, as Oblivion's stream,That flows through Death's dim vale of silence,—gulfsAll fathomless, down which the loosened rockPlunges, until its far-off echoes comeFainter and fainter, like the dying rollOf thunders in the distance.… BeautifulAre all the thousand snow-white gems that lieIn these mysterious chambers, gleaming outAmid the melancholy gloom, and wildThese rocky hills and cliffs, and gulfs, but farMore beautiful and wild, the things that greetThe wanderer in our world of light—the starsFloating on high, like islands of the blest,—The autumn sunsets glowing like the gateOf far-off Paradise; the gorgeous cloudsOn which the glories of the earth and skyMeet, and commingle; earth's unnumbered flowers,All turning up their gentle eyes to heaven;The birds, with bright wings glancing in the sun,Filling the air with rainbow miniatures;The green old forests surging in the gale;The everlasting mountains, on whose peaksThe setting sun burns like an altar-flame.
* * * * *
=Charles Constantine Pise, 1802-1866.= (Manual, p. 532.)
From "The Pleasures of Religion."
Mark, o'er yon wild, as melts the storm away,The rainbow tints their various hues display;Beauteous, though faint, though deeply shaded, bright,They span the clearing heavens, and charm the sight.Yes, as I gaze, methinks I view—the while,Hope's radiant form, and Mercy's genial smile.Who doth not see, in that sweet bow of heaven,Circling around the twilight hills of even,Religion's light, which o'er the wilds of lifeShoots its pure rays through misery and strife;Soothes the lone bosom, as it pines in woe,And turns to heaven this barren world below?O, what were man, did not her hallowed rayDisperse, the clouds that thicken on his way!A weary pilgrim, left in cheerless gloom,To grope his midnight journey to the tomb;His life a tempest, death, a wreck forlorn,In sorrow dying, as in sorrow born.
* * * * *
From "The Tourist"
And from this height, how beauteous to surveyThe neighboring shores, the bright cerulean bay:Myriads of sails are swelling on the deep,And oars, in myriads, through the waters sweep.Behold, in peace, all nations here unite,Their various pennons streaming to the sight:The red cross glows, the Danish crown appears,The half-moon rises, and the lion rears,But mark, bold-towering o'er the conscious wave,The starry banners of my country brave,Stream like a meteor to the wooing breeze,And float all-radiant o'er the sunny seas!Hail, native flag! for ever mayst thou blow—Hope to the friend, and terror to the foe!Again I hail thee, Calpe! on thy steepI wandered high, and gazed upon the deep!Nature's best fortress, which no warlike foe,No martial scheme, can ever overthrow.Art, too, had added strength, and given a graceThat smooths the rugged aspect of thy face.What wondrous halls along the mountain made!What trains of cannon in those halls arrayed!They frown imperious from their lofty state,Prepared around to deal the scourge of fate.
* * * * *
=Elijah P. Lovejoy,[81] 1802-1816.=
From "Lines to my Mother."
=355.=
There is a fire that burns on earth,A pure and holy flame;It came to men from heavenly birth,And still it is the sameAs when it burned the chords alongThat bore the first-born seraph's song;Sweet as the hymn of gratitudeThat swelled to Heaven when "all was good."No passion in the choirs aboveIs purer than a mother's love.* * * * *My mother! I am far awayFrom home, and love, and thee;And stranger hands may heap the clayThat soon may cover me;Yet we shall meet—perhaps not here,But in yon shining, azure sphere;And if there's aught assures me more,Ere yet my spirit fly,That Heaven has mercy still in storeFor such a wretch as I,'Tis that a heart so good as thineMust bleed, must burst, along with mine.
And life is short, at best, and timeMust soon prepare the tomb;And there is sure a happier climeBeyond this world of gloom.And should it be my happy lot,After a life of care and pain,In sadness spent, or spent in vain,To go where sighs and sin are not,'Twill make the half my heaven to be,My mother, evermore with thee.
[Footnote 81: Born in Maine, but lived at the West; was editor of a religions newspaper, which early assailed slavery as wrong; lost his life in defending his press against a mob at Alton, Illinois, July, 1836.]
* * * * *
=Edward Coate Pinkney, 1802-1828.= (Manual, p. 521.)
I fill this cup to one made up of loveliness alone;A woman, of her gentle sex the seeming paragon,To whom the better elements and kindly stars have givenA form so fair, that, like the air, 'tis less of earth than heaven.
Her every tone is music's own, like those of morning birds;And something more than melody dwells ever in her words.The coinage of her heart are they, and from her lips each flows,As one may see the burdened bee forth issue from the rose.
Affections are as thoughts to her, the measures of her hours;Her feelings have the fragrance and the freshness of young flowers;And lovely passions, changing oft, so fill her, she appearsThe image of themselves by turns, the idol of past years.
Of her bright face, one glance will trace a picture on the brain,And of her voice, in echoing hearts a sound must long remain;But memory such as mine of her, so very much, endearsWhen death is nigh, my latest sigh will not be life's, but hers.
I fill this cup to one made up of loveliness alone,A woman, of her gentle sex, the seeming paragon.Her health! and would on earth there stood some more of such a frame,That life might be all poetry, and weariness a name.
* * * * *
=Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-.= (Manual, pp. 478, 503, 531.)
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,Here once the embattled farmers stood,And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept;Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;And Time the ruined bridge has sweptDown the dark stream which seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream,We set to-day a votive stone,That memory may their deed redeem,When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
Spirit, that made those heroes dareTo die, or leave their children free,Bid Time and Nature gently spareThe shaft we raise to them and thee.
* * * * *
From "May Day."
Not for a regiment's parade,Nor evil laws or rulers made,Blue Walden rolls its cannonade,But for a lofty signWhich the Zodiac threw,That the bondage-days are told,And waters free as winds shall flow.Lo! how all the tribes combineTo rout the flying foe.See, every patriot oak-leaf throwsHis elfin length upon the snows,Not idle, since the leaf all dayDraws to the spot the solar ray,Ere sunset quarrying inches down,And half-way to the mosses brown;While the grass beneath the rimeHas hints of the propitious time,And upward pries and perforatesThrough the cold slab a thousand gates,Till the green lances peering throughBend happy in the welkin blue,* * * * *The ground-pines wash their rusty green,The maple-tops their crimson tint,On the soft path each track is seen,The girl's foot leaves its neater print.The pebble loosened from the frostAsks of the urchin to be tost.In flint and marble beats a heart,The kind Earth takes her children's part,The green lane is the school-boy's friend,Low leaves his quarrel apprehend,The fresh ground loves his top and ball,The air rings jocund to his call,The brimming brook invites a leap,He dives the hollow, climbs the steep.The youth reads omens where he goes,And speaks all languages, the rose.The wood-fly mocks with tiny noiseThe far halloo of human voice;The perfumed berry on the spraySmacks of faint memories far away.A subtle chain of countless ringsThe next unto the farthest brings,And, striving to be man, the wormMounts through all the spires of form.
* * * * *
From "Voluntaries II."
In an age of joys and toys,Wanting wisdom, void of right,Who shall nerve heroic boysTo hazard all in Freedom's fight,—Break shortly off their jolly games,Forsake their comrades gay,And quit proud homes and youthful dames,For famine, toil, and fray?Yet on the nimble air benignSpeed nimbler messages,That waft the breath of grace divineTo hearts in sloth and ease.So nigh is grandeur to our dust,So near is God to man,When duty whispers low,Thou must,The youth replies,I can.* * * * *Stainless soldier on the walls,Knowing this,—and knows no more,—Whoever fights, whoever fallsJustice conquers evermore,Justice after as before.—
* * * * *
=Thomas C. Upham,[82] 1799-1873.=
Boy of my earlier days and hopes! Once more,Dear child of memory, of love, of tears!I see thee, as I saw in days of yore,As in thy young, and in thy lovely, years.
The same in youthful look, the same in form;The same the gentle voice I used to hear;Though many a year hath passed, and many a stormHath dashed its foam around thy cruel bier.
Deep in the stormy ocean's hidden caveBuried, and lost to human care and sight,What power hath interposed to rend thy grave?What arm hath brought thee thus to life and light?
I weep,—the tears my aged cheek that stain,The throbs that once more swell my aching breast,Embodying one of anxious thought and pain,That wept and watched around that place of rest.
O leave me not, my child! Or, if it be,That coming thus, thou canst not longer stay,Yet shall this kindly visit's mysteryGive rise to hopes that never can decay.
Dear cherished image from thy stormy bed!Child of my early woe, and early joy!'Tis thus at last the sea shall yield her dead,And give again my loved, my buried boy.
[Footnote 82: A philosophical and religious writer of much merit and earnestness; author of a volume of poems; for a long time professor of moral and mental philosophy in Bowdoin College. A native of New Hampshire.]
* * * * *
=Jacob Leonard Martin,[83] 1803-1848.=
Tomb of the mighty dead,[84] illustrious shrine,Where genius, in the majesty of death,Reposes solemn, sepulchred beneath,Temple o'er every other fane divine!Dark Santa Crocé, in whose dust reclineTheir mouldering relics whose immortal wreath.Blooms on, unfaded by Time's withering breath,In these proud ashes what a prize is thine!Sure it is holy ground I tread upon;Nor do I breathe unconsecrated air,As, rapt, I gaze on each undying name.These monuments are fragments of the throneOnce reared by genius on this spot so fair,When Florence was the seat of arts and early fame.
[Footnote 83: A native of North Carolina; best known in political life, but meritorious in literature.]
[Footnote 84: In this church repose Galileo, Michael Angelo, Alfieri, and other illustrious Italians.]
* * * * *
=Geo. W. Bethune, 1803-1862.= (Manual, p. 487.)
Invocation.
Hushed is their song; from long-frequented grove,Pale Memory, are thy bright-eyed daughters gone;No more in strains of melody and love,Gush forth thy sacred waters, Helicon;Prostrate on Egypt's plain, Aurora's son,God of the sunbeam and the living lyre,No more shall hail thee with mellifluous tone;Nor shall thy Pythia, raving from thy fire,Speak of the future sooth to those who would inquire.