The end has come, as come it mustTo all things; in these sweet June daysThe teacher and the scholar trustTheir parting feet to separate ways.
They part: but in the years to beShall pleasant memories cling to each,As shells bear inland from the seaThe murmur of the rhythmic beach.
One knew the joy the sculptor knowsWhen, plastic to his lightest touch,His clay-wrought model slowly growsTo that fine grace desired so much.
So daily grew before her eyesThe living shapes whereon she wrought,Strong, tender, innocently wise,The child's heart with the woman's thought.
And one shall never quite forgetThe voice that called from dream and play,The firm but kindly hand that setHer feet in learning's pleasant way,—
The joy of Undine soul-possessed,The wakening sense, the strange delightThat swelled the fabled statue's breastAnd filled its clouded eyes with sight.
O Youth and Beauty, loved of all!Ye pass from girlhood's gate of dreams;In broader ways your footsteps fall,Ye test the truth of all that seams.
Her little realm the teacher leaves,She breaks her wand of power apart,While, for your love and trust, she givesThe warm thanks of a grateful heart.
Hers is the sober summer noonContrasted with your morn of spring,The waning with the waxing moon,The folded with the outspread wing.
Across the distance of the yearsShe sends her God-speed back to you;She has no thought of doubts or fearsBe but yourselves, be pure, be true,
And prompt in duty; heed the deep,Low voice of conscience; through the illAnd discord round about you, keepYour faith in human nature still.
Be gentle: unto griefs and needs,Be pitiful as woman should,And, spite of all the lies of creeds,Hold fast the truth that God is good.
Give and receive; go forth and blessThe world that needs the hand and heartOf Martha's helpful carefulnessNo less than Mary's better part.
So shall the stream of time flow byAnd leave each year a richer good,And matron loveliness outvieThe nameless charm of maidenhood.
And, when the world shall link your namesWith gracious lives and manners fine,The teacher shall assert her claims,And proudly whisper, "These were mine!"
Sung at the anniversary of the Children's Mission, Boston, 1878.
Thine are all the gifts, O God!Thine the broken bread;Let the naked feet be shod,And the starving fed.
Let Thy children, by Thy grace,Give as they abound,Till the poor have breathing-space,And the lost are found.
Wiser than the miser's hoardsIs the giver's choice;Sweeter than the song of birdsIs the thankful voice.
Welcome smiles on faces sadAs the flowers of spring;Let the tender hearts be gladWith the joy they bring.
Happier for their pity's sakeMake their sports and plays,And from lips of childhood takeThy perfected praise!
This poem was read at a meeting of citizens of Boston having forits object the preservation of the Old South Church famous inColonial and Revolutionary history.
I.THROUGH the streets of MarbleheadFast the red-winged terror sped;
Blasting, withering, on it came,With its hundred tongues of flame,
Where St. Michael's on its wayStood like chained Andromeda,
Waiting on the rock, like her,Swift doom or deliverer!
Church that, after sea-moss grewOver walls no longer new,
Counted generations five,Four entombed and one alive;
Heard the martial thousand treadBattleward from Marblehead;
Saw within the rock-walled bayTreville's liked pennons play,
And the fisher's dory metBy the barge of Lafayette,
Telling good news in advanceOf the coming fleet of France!
Church to reverend memories, dear,Quaint in desk and chandelier;
Bell, whose century-rusted tongueBurials tolled and bridals rung;
Loft, whose tiny organ keptKeys that Snetzler's hand had swept;
Altar, o'er whose tablet oldSinai's law its thunders rolled!
Suddenly the sharp cry came"Look! St. Michael's is aflame!"
Round the low tower wall the fireSnake-like wound its coil of ire.
Sacred in its gray respectFrom the jealousies of sect,
"Save it," seemed the thought of all,"Save it, though our roof-trees fall!"
Up the tower the young men sprung;One, the bravest, outward swung
By the rope, whose kindling strandsSmoked beneath the holder's hands,
Smiting down with strokes of powerBurning fragments from the tower.
Then the gazing crowd beneathBroke the painful pause of breath;
Brave men cheered from street to street,With home's ashes at their feet;
Houseless women kerchiefs waved:"Thank the Lord! St. Michael's saved!"
II.In the heart of Boston townStands the church of old renown,
From whose walls the impulse wentWhich set free a continent;
From whose pulpit's oracleProphecies of freedom fell;
And whose steeple-rocking dinRang the nation's birth-day in!
Standing at this very hourPerilled like St. Michael's tower,
Held not in the clasp of flame,But by mammon's grasping claim.
Shall it be of Boston saidShe is shamed by Marblehead?
City of our pride! as there,Hast thou none to do and dare?
Life was risked for Michael's shrine;Shall not wealth be staked for thine?
Woe to thee, when men shall searchVainly for the Old South Church;
When from Neck to Boston Stone,All thy pride of place is gone;
When from Bay and railroad car,Stretched before them wide and far,
Men shall only see a greatWilderness of brick and slate,
Every holy spot o'erlaidBy the commonplace of trade!
City of our love': to theeDuty is but destiny.
True to all thy record saith,Keep with thy traditions faith;
Ere occasion's overpast,Hold its flowing forelock fast;
Honor still the precedentsOf a grand munificence;
In thy old historic wayGive, as thou didst yesterday
At the South-land's call, or onNeed's demand from fired St. John.
Set thy Church's muffled bellFree the generous deed to tell.
Let thy loyal hearts rejoiceIn the glad, sonorous voice,
Ringing from the brazen mouthOf the bell of the Old South,—
Ringing clearly, with a will, "What she was is Boston still!" 1879
The American Horticultural Society, 1882.
O painter of the fruits and flowers,We own wise design,Where these human hands of oursMay share work of Thine!
Apart from Thee we plant in vainThe root and sow the seed;Thy early and Thy later rain,Thy sun and dew we need.
Our toil is sweet with thankfulness,Our burden is our boon;The curse of Earth's gray morning isThe blessing of its noon.
Why search the wide world everywhereFor Eden's unknown ground?That garden of the primal pairMay nevermore be found.
But, blest by Thee, our patient toilMay right the ancient wrong,And give to every clime and soilThe beauty lost so long.
Our homestead flowers and fruited treesMay Eden's orchard shame;We taste the tempting sweets of theseLike Eve, without her blame.
And, North and South and East and West,The pride of every zone,The fairest, rarest, and the bestMay all be made our own.
Its earliest shrines the young world soughtIn hill-groves and in bowers,The fittest offerings thither broughtWere Thy own fruits and flowers.
And still with reverent hands we cullThy gifts each year renewed;The good is always beautiful,The beautiful is good.
Read at Harriet Beecher Stowe's seventieth anniversary, June 14,1882, at a garden party at ex-Governor Claflin's in Newtonville,Mass.
Thrice welcome from the Land of FlowersAnd golden-fruited orange bowersTo this sweet, green-turfed June of ours!To her who, in our evil time,Dragged into light the nation's crimeWith strength beyond the strength of men,And, mightier than their swords, her pen!To her who world-wide entrance gaveTo the log-cabin of the slave;Made all his wrongs and sorrows known,And all earth's languages his own,—North, South, and East and West, made allThe common air electrical,Until the o'ercharged bolts of heavenBlazed down, and every chain was riven!
Welcome from each and all to herWhose Wooing of the MinisterRevealed the warm heart of the manBeneath the creed-bound Puritan,And taught the kinship of the loveOf man below and God above;To her whose vigorous pencil-strokesSketched into life her Oldtown Folks;Whose fireside stories, grave or gay,In quaint Sam Lawson's vagrant way,With old New England's flavor rife,Waifs from her rude idyllic life,Are racy as the legends oldBy Chaucer or Boccaccio told;To her who keeps, through change of placeAnd time, her native strength and grace,Alike where warm Sorrento smiles,Or where, by birchen-shaded isles,Whose summer winds have shivered o'erThe icy drift of Labrador,She lifts to light the priceless PearlOf Harpswell's angel-beckoned girl!To her at threescore years and tenBe tributes of the tongue and pen;Be honor, praise, and heart-thanks given,The loves of earth, the hopes of heaven!
Ah, dearer than the praise that stirsThe air to-day, our love is hers!She needs no guaranty of fameWhose own is linked with Freedom's name.Long ages after ours shall keepHer memory living while we sleep;The waves that wash our gray coast lines,The winds that rock the Southern pines,Shall sing of her; the unending yearsShall tell her tale in unborn ears.And when, with sins and follies past,Are numbered color-hate and caste,White, black, and red shall own as oneThe noblest work by woman done.
Written on the occasion of a voyage made by my friendsAnnie Fields and Sarah Orne Jewett.
Outbound, your bark awaits you. Were I oneWhose prayer availeth much, my wish should beYour favoring trade-wind and consenting sea.By sail or steed was never love outrun,And, here or there, love follows her in whomAll graces and sweet charities unite,The old Greek beauty set in holier light;And her for whom New England's byways bloom,Who walks among us welcome as the Spring,Calling up blossoms where her light feet stray.God keep you both, make beautiful your way,Comfort, console, and bless; and safely bring,Ere yet I make upon a vaster seaThe unreturning voyage, my friends to me.1882.
In reply to a flower gift from Mrs. Putnam's school atJamaica Plain.
My garden roses long agoHave perished from the leaf-strewn walks;Their pale, fair sisters smile no moreUpon the sweet-brier stalks.
Gone with the flower-time of my life,Spring's violets, summer's blooming pride,And Nature's winter and my ownStand, flowerless, side by side.
So might I yesterday have sung;To-day, in bleak December's noon,Come sweetest fragrance, shapes, and hues,The rosy wealth of June!
Bless the young bands that culled the gift,And bless the hearts that prompted it;If undeserved it comes, at leastIt seems not all unfit.
Of old my Quaker ancestorsHad gifts of forty stripes save one;To-day as many roses crownThe gray head of their son.
And with them, to my fancy's eye,The fresh-faced givers smiling come,And nine and thirty happy girlsMake glad a lonely room.
They bring the atmosphere of youth;The light and warmth of long agoAre in my heart, and on my cheekThe airs of morning blow.
O buds of girlhood, yet unblown,And fairer than the gift ye chose,For you may years like leaves unfoldThe heart of Sharon's rose1883.
Read September 10, 1885, to the surviving students of HaverhillAcademy in 1827-1830.
The gulf of seven and fifty yearsWe stretch our welcoming hands across;The distance but a pebble's tossBetween us and our youth appears.
For in life's school we linger onThe remnant of a once full list;Conning our lessons, undismissed,With faces to the setting sun.
And some have gone the unknown way,And some await the call to rest;Who knoweth whether it is bestFor those who went or those who stay?
And yet despite of loss and ill,If faith and love and hope remain,Our length of days is not in vain,And life is well worth living still.
Still to a gracious ProvidenceThe thanks of grateful hearts are due,For blessings when our lives were new,For all the good vouchsafed us since.
The pain that spared us sorer hurt,The wish denied, the purpose crossed,And pleasure's fond occasions lost,Were mercies to our small desert.
'T is something that we wander back,Gray pilgrims, to our ancient ways,And tender memories of old daysWalk with us by the Merrimac;
That even in life's afternoonA sense of youth comes back again,As through this cool September rainThe still green woodlands dream of June.
The eyes grown dim to present thingsHave keener sight for bygone years,And sweet and clear, in deafening ears,The bird that sang at morning sings.
Dear comrades, scattered wide and far,Send from their homes their kindly word,And dearer ones, unseen, unheard,Smile on us from some heavenly star.
For life and death with God are one,Unchanged by seeming change His careAnd love are round us here and there;He breaks no thread His hand has spun.
Soul touches soul, the muster rollOf life eternal has no gaps;And after half a century's lapseOur school-day ranks are closed and whole.
Hail and farewell! We go our way;Where shadows end, we trust in light;The star that ushers in the nightIs herald also of the day!
Norumbega Hall at Wellesley College, named in honor of Eben Norton Horsford, who has been one of the most munificent patrons of that noble institution, and who had just published an essay claiming the discovery of the site of the somewhat mythical city of Norumbega, was opened with appropriate ceremonies, in April, 1886. The following sonnet was written for the occasion, and was read by President Alice E. Freeman, to whom it was addressed.
Not on Penobscot's wooded bank the spiresOf the sought City rose, nor yet besideThe winding Charles, nor where the daily tideOf Naumkeag's haven rises and retires,The vision tarried; but somewhere we knewThe beautiful gates must open to our quest,Somewhere that marvellous City of the WestWould lift its towers and palace domes in view,And, to! at last its mystery is made known—Its only dwellers maidens fair and young,Its Princess such as England's Laureate sung;And safe from capture, save by love alone,It lends its beauty to the lake's green shore,And Norumbega is a myth no more.
1886
The land, that, from the rule of kings,In freeing us, itself made free,Our Old World Sister, to us bringsHer sculptured Dream of Liberty,
Unlike the shapes on Egypt's sandsUplifted by the toil-worn slave,On Freedom's soil with freemen's handsWe rear the symbol free hands gave.
O France, the beautiful! to theeOnce more a debt of love we oweIn peace beneath thy Colors Three,We hail a later Rochambeau!
Rise, stately Symbol! holding forthThy light and hope to all who sitIn chains and darkness! Belt the earthWith watch-fires from thy torch uplit!
Reveal the primal mandate stillWhich Chaos heard and ceased to be,Trace on mid-air th' Eternal WillIn signs of fire: "Let man be free!"
Shine far, shine free, a guiding lightTo Reason's ways and Virtue's aim,A lightning-flash the wretch to smiteWho shields his license with thy name!
Written for the unveiling of the statue of Josiah Bartlett at Amesbury, Mass., July 4, 1888. Governor Bartlett, who was a native of the town, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Amesbury or Ambresbury, so called from the "anointed stones" of the great Druidical temple near it, was the seat of one of the earliest religious houses in Britain. The tradition that the guilty wife of King Arthur fled thither for protection forms one of the finest passages in Tennyson's Idyls of the King.
O storied vale of MerrimacRejoice through all thy shade and shine,And from his century's sleep call backA brave and honored son of thine.
Unveil his effigy betweenThe living and the dead to-day;The fathers of the Old ThirteenShall witness bear as spirits may.
Unseen, unheard, his gray compeersThe shades of Lee and Jefferson,Wise Franklin reverend with his yearsAnd Carroll, lord of Carrollton!
Be thine henceforth a pride of placeBeyond thy namesake's over-sea,Where scarce a stone is left to traceThe Holy House of Amesbury.
A prouder memory lingers roundThe birthplace of thy true man hereThan that which haunts the refuge foundBy Arthur's mythic Guinevere.
The plain deal table where he satAnd signed a nation's title-deedIs dearer now to fame than thatWhich bore the scroll of Runnymede.
Long as, on Freedom's natal morn,Shall ring the Independence bells,Give to thy dwellers yet unbornThe lesson which his image tells.
For in that hour of Destiny,Which tried the men of bravest stock,He knew the end alone must beA free land or a traitor's block.
Among those picked and chosen menThan his, who here first drew his breath,No firmer fingers held the penWhich wrote for liberty or death.
Not for their hearths and homes alone,But for the world their work was done;On all the winds their thought has flownThrough all the circuit of the sun.
We trace its flight by broken chains,By songs of grateful Labor still;To-day, in all her holy fanes,It rings the bells of freed Brazil.
O hills that watched his boyhood's home,O earth and air that nursed him, give,In this memorial semblance, roomTo him who shall its bronze outlive!
And thou, O Land he loved, rejoiceThat in the countless years to come,Whenever Freedom needs a voice,These sculptured lips shall not be dumb!