I.Fate summoned, in gray-bearded age, to actA history stranger than his written fact,Him who portrayed the splendor and the gloomOf that great hour when throne and altar fellWith long death-groan which still is audible.He, when around the walls of Paris rungThe Prussian bugle like the blast of doom,And every ill which follows unblest warMaddened all France from Finistere to Var,The weight of fourscore from his shoulders flung,And guided Freedom in the path he sawLead 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 imminentAs that from which the Silent William wentWhen powers of evil, like the smiting seasOn Holland's dikes, assailed her liberties.Sadly, while yet in doubtful balance hungThe weal and woe of France, the bells were rungFor her lost leader. Paralyzed of will,Above his bier the hearts of men stood still.Then, as if set to his dead lips, the hornOf Roland wound once more to rouse and warn,The old voice filled the air! His last brave wordNot 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 whomThy civic wreaths belong,O city of his love, make roomFor 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 timeAs well as if his clerkly penHad never danced to rhyme.If, in the thronged and noisy mart,The Muses found their son,Could any say his tuneful artA duty left undone?He toiled and sang; and year by yearMen found their homes more sweet,And through a tenderer atmosphereLooked down the brick-walled street.The Greek's wild onset gall Street knew;The Red King walked Broadway;And Alnwick Castle's roses blewFrom Palisades to Bay.Fair City by the Sea! upraiseHis veil with reverent hands;And mingle with thy own the praiseAnd pride of other lands.Let Greece his fiery lyric breatheAbove her hero-urns;And Scotland, with her holly, wreatheThe flower he culled for Burns.Oh, stately stand thy palace walls,Thy tall ships ride the seas;To-day thy poet's name recallsA prouder thought than these.Not less thy pulse of trade shall beat,Nor less thy tall fleets swim,That shaded square and dusty streetAre 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 knewThe living man, to-dayBefore his unveiled face, how fewMake 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'ercreepThe lines of Halleck's name.1877.
Oh, well may Essex sit forlornBeside her sea-blown shore;Her well beloved, her noblest born,Is hers in life no more!No lapse of years can render lessHer memory's sacred claim;No fountain of forgetfulnessCan wet the lips of Fame.A grief alike to wound and heal,A thought to soothe and pain,The sad, sweet pride that mothers feelTo 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 foundTo grace in Arthur's golden ageThe 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 heartToo warm for hate, he knewThe generous victor's graceful partTo sheathe the sword he drew.When Earth, as if on evil dreams,Looks back upon her wars,And the white light of Christ outstreamsFrom the red disk of Mars,His fame who led the stormy vanOf battle well may cease,But never that which crowns the manWhose victory was Peace.Mourn, Essex, on thy sea-blown shoreThy 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 griefThat 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 wayCommon 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 pledgeOn Lapland snows, the North Cape's windy wedge,And Tromso freezing in its winter sea.He went and came. But no man knows the trackOf 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 tentTo 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 thoughtSlowly he climbed, but every step was sure.How, with the generous pride that friendship hath,We, who so loved him, saw at last the crownOf civic honor on his brows pressed down,Rejoiced, and knew not that the gift was death.And now for him, whose praise in deafened earsTwo 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. LetNor 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 messagesOf love pursue him o'er the chartless seasAnd unmapped vastness of his unknown starLove's language, heard beyond the loud discourseOf perishable fame, in every sphereItself interprets; and its utterance hereSomewhere in God's unfolding universeShall reach our traveller, softening the surpriseOf his rapt gaze on unfamiliar skies!1879.
OUR AUTOCRAT.
Read at the breakfast given in honor of Dr. Holmes by the publishers of the Atlantic Monthly, December 3, 1879.
His laurels fresh from song and lay,Romance, art, science, rich in all,And young of heart, how dare we sayWe keep his seventieth festival?No sense is here of loss or lack;Before his sweetness and his lightThe dial holds its shadow back,The charmed hours delay their flight.His still the keen analysisOf men and moods, electric wit,Free play of mirth, and tendernessTo heal the slightest wound from it.And his the pathos touching allLife's sins and sorrows and regrets,Its hopes and fears, its final callAnd rest beneath the violets.His sparkling surface scarce betraysThe 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 comeThe 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 laidOn Little Boston's pallid cheek!Long may he live to sing for usHis sweetest songs at evening time,And, like his Chambered Nautilus,To holier heights of beauty climb,Though now unnumbered guests surroundThe 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!
I have more fully expressed my admiration and regard for Lydia Maria Child in the biographical introduction which I wrote for the volume of Letters, published after her death.
We sat together, last May-day, and talkedOf the dear friends who walkedBeside us, sharers of the hopes and fearsOf five and forty years,Since first we met in Freedom's hope forlorn,And heard her battle-hornSound through the valleys of the sleeping North,Calling her children forth,And youth pressed forward with hope-lighted eyes,And age, with forecast wiseOf 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 tollFor the unanswering many, and we knewThe living were the few.And we, who waited our own call beforeThe inevitable door,Listened and looked, as all have done, to winSome token from within.No sign we saw, we heard no voices call;The impenetrable wallCast 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 taleWherewith the ages spanned the gulf betweenThe seen and the unseen,Seeking from omen, trance, and dream to gainSolace to doubtful pain,And touch, with groping hands, the garment hemOf truth sufficing them,We talked; and, turning from the sore unrestOf an all-baffling quest,We thought of holy lives that from us passedHopeful unto the last,As if they saw beyond the river of death,Like Him of Nazareth,The many mansions of the Eternal daysLift up their gates of praise.And, hushed to silence by a reverent awe,Methought, O friend, I sawIn thy true life of word, and work, and thoughtThe proof of all we sought.Did we not witness in the life of theeImmortal prophecy?And feel, when with thee, that thy footsteps trodAn everlasting road?Not for brief days thy generous sympathies,Thy scorn of selfish ease;Not for the poor prize of an earthly goalThy strong uplift of soul.Than thine was never turned a fonder heartTo nature and to artIn fair-formed Hellas in her golden prime,Thy Philothea's time.Yet, loving beauty, thou couldst pass it by,And for the poor denyThyself, and see thy fresh, sweet flower of fameWither in blight and blame.Sharing His love who holds in His embraceThe lowliest of our race,Sure the Divine economy must beConservative of thee!For truth must live with truth, self-sacrificeSeek out its great allies;Good must find good by gravitation sure,And love with love endure.And so, since thou hast passed within the gateWhereby awhile I wait,I give blind grief and blinder sense the lieThou hast not lived to die!1881.
As a guest who may not stayLong and sad farewells to sayGlides with smiling face away,Of the sweetness and the zestOf thy happy life possessedThou hast left us at thy best.Warm of heart and clear of brain,Of thy sun-bright spirit's waneThou hast spared us all the pain.Now that thou hast gone away,What is left of one to sayWho was open as the day?What is there to gloss or shun?Save with kindly voices noneSpeak 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 thingAt 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 claimSacred, and thy lips becameReverent with one holy Name.Therefore, on thy unknown way,Go in God's peace! We who stayBut a little while delay.Keep for us, O friend, where'erThou art waiting, all that hereMade thy earthly presence dear;Something of thy pleasant pastOn a ground of wonder cast,In the stiller waters glassed!Keep the human heart of thee;Let the mortal only beClothed in immortality.And when fall our feet as fellThine upon the asphodel,Let thy old smile greet us well;Proving in a world of blissWhat we fondly dream in this,—Love is one with holiness!1881.
Read at the Massachusetts Club on the seventieth anniversary the birthday of Vice-President Wilson, February 16, 1882.
The lowliest born of all the land,He wrung from Fate's reluctant handThe gifts which happier boyhood claims;And, tasting on a thankless soilThe 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 blazeHe 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 knewThe work her children had to do;And when, at last, he heard the callIn her behalf to serve and dare,Beside his senatorial chairHe stood the unquestioned peer of all.Beyond the accident of birthHe proved his simple manhood's worth;Ancestral pride and classic graceConfessed the large-brained artisan,So clear of sight, so wise in planAnd counsel, equal to his place.With glance intuitive he sawThrough all disguise of form and law,And read men like an open book;Fearless and firm, he never quailedNor turned aside for threats, nor failedTo do the thing he undertook.How wise, how brave, he was, how wellHe bore himself, let history tellWhile waves our flag o'er land and sea,No black thread in its warp or weft;He found dissevered States, he leftA grateful Nation, strong and free!
WITH a glory of winter sunshineOver his locks of gray,In the old historic mansionHe sat on his last birthday;With his books and his pleasant pictures,And his household and his kin,While a sound as of myriads singingFrom 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 childrenWere singing the songs of him,The lays of his life's glad morning,The psalms of his evening time,Whose echoes shall float foreverOn 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 fellWith a joy akin to sadnessAnd a greeting like farewell.With a sense of awe he listenedTo the voices sweet and young;The last of earth and the first of heavenSeemed in the songs they sung.And waiting a little longerFor the wonderful change to come,He heard the Summoning Angel,Who calls God's children home!And to him in a holier welcomeWas the mystical meaning givenOf 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 welcomeNot for ourselves alone.In the long years of thy absenceSome of us have grown old,And some have passed the portalsOf the Mystery untold;For the hands that cannot clasp thee,For the voices that are dumb,For each and all I bid theeA grateful welcome home!For Cedarcroft's sweet singerTo the nine-fold Muses dear;For the Seer the winding ConcordPaused by his door to hear;For him, our guide and Nestor,Who the march of song began,The white locks of his ninety yearsBared to thy winds, Cape Ann!For him who, to the musicHer pines and hemlocks played,Set the old and tender storyOf the lorn Acadian maid;For him, whose voice for freedomSwayed friend and foe at will,Hushed is the tongue of silver,The golden lips are still!For her whose life of dutyAt scoff and menace smiled,Brave as the wife of Roland,Yet gentle as a Child.And for him the three-hilled cityShall hold in memory long,Those name is the hint and tokenOf 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 garlandsThat 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 youthWho sang Saint Agnes' Eve! How passing fairHer shapes took color in thy homestead air!How on thy canvas even her dreams were truth!Magician! who from commonest elementsCalled up divine ideals, clothed uponBy mystic lights soft blending into oneWomanly 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 thereinMay 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 starHe passed; and sect and party scarcely knewWhen from their midst a sage and seer withdrewTo fitter audience, where the great dead areIn 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 spoonThe 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 showAt need her course, in lack of sun and star,Where icebergs threaten, and the sharp reefs are;Lift the blind fog on Anticosti's leeAnd Avalon's rock; make populous the seaRound 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 saithA strong, wise man has died.Faults doubtless had he. Had we notOur own, to question and asperseThe worth we doubted or forgotUntil beside his hearse?Ambitious, cautious, yet the manTo 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 tongueTheir fitting tribute pay,Shall we not vow above his bierTo set our feet on party lies,And wound no more a living earWith words that Death denies?1886
Suggested by Mrs. Stowe's tale of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and written when the characters in the tale were realities by the fireside of countless American homes.
Dry the tears for holy Eva,With the blessed angels leave her;Of the form so soft and fairGive to earth the tender care.For the golden locks of EvaLet the sunny south-land give herFlowery pillow of repose,Orange-bloom and budding rose.In the better home of EvaLet 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 wearinessLost 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 poorWafting to the heavenly shore!1852
Written for the Essex County Agricultural Fair, and sung at the banquet at Newburyport, October 2, 1856.
One morning of the first sad Fall,Poor Adam and his brideSat in the shade of Eden's wall—But on the outer side.She, blushing in her fig-leaf suitFor the chaste garb of old;He, sighing o'er his bitter fruitFor 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 standThe 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 powerCan make the desert glad,And call around you fruit and flowerAs fair as Eden had."I clothe your hands with power to liftThe 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 treesThe angel passed away.The pilgrims of the world went forthObedient to the word,And found where'er they tilled the earthA garden of the Lord!The thorn-tree cast its evil fruitAnd blushed with plum and pear,And seeded grass and trodden rootGrew sweet beneath their care.We share our primal parents' fate,And, in our turn and day,Look back on Eden's sworded gateAs sad and lost as they.But still for us his native skiesThe pitying Angel leaves,And leads through Toil to ParadiseNew Adams and new Eves!
For the Agricultural and Horticultural Exhibition at Amesbury and Salisbury, September 28, 1858.
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 toldNo 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 designWhereby these human hands of oursIn Nature's garden work with Thine.And thanks that from our daily needThe 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 worthWho toils to leave as his bequestAn 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.
This beautiful lake in East Haverhill was the "Great Pond" the writer's boyhood. In 1859 a movement was made for improving its shores as a public park. At the opening of the park, August 31, 1859, the poem which gave it the name of Kenoza (in Indian language signifying Pickerel) was read.
As Adam did in Paradise,To-day the primal right we claimFair mirror of the woods and skies,We give to thee a name.Lake of the pickerel!—let no moreThe echoes answer back, "Great Pond,"But sweet Kenoza, from thy shoreAnd watching hills beyond,Let Indian ghosts, if such there beWho 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 joysWe 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 playsFrom a low, hidden cloud by night,A light to set the hills ablaze,But not a bolt to smite.In sunny South and prairied WestAre 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 lakeShall morning break or noon-cloud sail,—No fairer face than thine shall takeThe sunset's golden veil.Long be it ere the tide of tradeShall break with harsh-resounding dinThe 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 ministerThe healing of their life.And sinless Mirth, from care released,Behold, unawed, thy mirrored sky,Smiling as smiled on Cana's feastThe Master's loving eye.And when the summer day grows dim,And light mists walk thy mimic sea,Revive in us the thought of HimWho walked on Galilee!
The Persian's flowery gifts, the shrineOf fruitful Ceres, charm no more;The woven wreaths of oak and pineAre 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 flowersAnd fruits, have come to own againThe blessings of the summer hours,The early and the latter rain;To see our Father's hand once moreReverse for us the plenteous hornOf autumn, filled and running o'erWith fruit, and flower, and golden corn!Once more the liberal year laughs outO'er richer stores than gems or gold;Once more with harvest-song and shoutIs 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 sentThe 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 sunThat casts it shines behind us still.God gives us with our rugged soilThe power to make it Eden-fair,And richer fruits to crown our toilThan 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 armCan change a rocky soil to gold,—That brave and generous lives can warmA clime with northern ices cold.And let these altars, wreathed with flowersAnd piled with fruits, awake againThanksgivings for the golden hours,The early and the latter rain!1859
Read at the Friends' School Anniversary, Providence, R. I., 6th mo., 1860.
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 allThrough 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 soonrom 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 playOf 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 payThe 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 leastOf 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 allHer 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 downTo 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 blameThe white bust of Penn, in the niche of his fame!Self-will is self-wounding, perversity blindOn 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 forgetTo 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 takeThe 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 oneShall we bottle the free air, or hoard up the sun?Well know we our birthright may serve but to showHow 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 townFor 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 sectTo 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 sereneOn prelate and puritan, Channing is seen.One holy name bearing, no longer they needCredentials of party, and pass-words of creedThe 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 theseGlide swift into shadow, like sails on the seasWhile 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 seemLike a school-boy's who idles and plays with his theme.Forgive the light measure whose changes displayThe sunshine and rain of our brief April day.There are moments in life when the lip and the eyeTry the question of whether to smile or to cry;And scenes and reunions that prompt like our ownThe tender in feeling, the playful in tone.I, who never sat down with the boys and the girlsAt the feet of your Slocums, and Cartlands, and Earles,—By courtesy only permitted to layOn your festival's altar my poor gift, to-day,—I would joy in your joy: let me have a friend's partIn 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 yearRecruits to true manhood and womanhood dearBrave boys, modest maidens, in beauty sent forth,The living epistles and proof of its worth!In and out let the young life as steadily flowAs in broad Narragansett the tides come and go;And its sons and its daughters in prairie and townRemember its honor, and guard its renown.Not vainly the gift of its founder was made;Not prayerless the stones of its corner were laidThe blessing of Him whom in secret they soughtHas owned the good work which the fathers have wrought.To Him be the glory forever! We bearTo 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!