The sea rolled chorus to his speechThree-banked like Latium's' tall trireme,With laboring oars; the grove and beachWere Forum and the Academe.
The sensuous joy from all things fairHis strenuous bent of soul repressed,And left from youth to silvered hairFew hours for pleasure, none for rest.
For all his life was poor without,O Nature, make the last amendsTrain all thy flowers his grave about,And make thy singing-birds his friends!
Revive again, thou summer rain,The broken turf upon his bedBreathe, summer wind, thy tenderest strainOf low, sweet music overhead!
With calm and beauty symbolizeThe peace which follows long annoy,And lend our earth-bent, mourning eyes,Some hint of his diviner joy.
For safe with right and truth he is,As God lives he must live alway;There is no end for souls like his,No night for children of the day!
Nor cant nor poor solicitudesMade weak his life's great argument;Small leisure his for frames and moodsWho followed Duty where she went.
The broad, fair fields of God he sawBeyond the bigot's narrow bound;The truths he moulded into lawIn Christ's beatitudes he found.
His state-craft was the Golden Rule,His right of vote a sacred trust;Clear, over threat and ridicule,All heard his challenge: "Is it just?"
And when the hour supreme had come,Not for himself a thought he gave;In that last pang of martyrdom,His care was for the half-freed slave.
Not vainly dusky hands upbore,In prayer, the passing soul to heavenWhose mercy to His suffering poorWas service to the Master given.
Long shall the good State's annals tell,Her children's children long be taught,How, praised or blamed, he guarded wellThe trust he neither shunned nor sought.
If for one moment turned thy face,O Mother, from thy son, not longHe waited calmly in his placeThe sure remorse which follows wrong.
Forgiven be the State he lovedThe one brief lapse, the single blot;Forgotten be the stain removed,Her righted record shows it not!
The lifted sword above her shieldWith jealous care shall guard his fame;The pine-tree on her ancient fieldTo all the winds shall speak his name.
The marble image of her sonHer loving hands shall yearly crown,And from her pictured PantheonHis grand, majestic face look down.
O State so passing rich before,Who now shall doubt thy highest claim?The world that counts thy jewels o'erShall longest pause at Sumner's name!1874.
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.
Read at the breakfast given in honor of Dr. Holmes by thepublishers 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 LydiaMaria Child in the biographical introduction which I wrote for thevolume 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 thebirthday 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.
Author of The Nation and The Republic of God.
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