Chips, fragments and vestiges by Gail Hamilton :: :: University of Virginia Library

Throned on her rock-bound hill, comely, and strong, and free,
She sends a daughter's greeting to Ipswich over the sea,
But she folds to her motherly heart, with welcome motherly sweet,
The children home returning to sit at her beautiful feet.
Fair is her heritage, fair with the blue of the bountiful sky;
Green to the warm, white sand her billowy marshes lie:
Her summer calm is pulsed with the beat of the bending oar
Where the river shines and sleeps in the shadows of Turkey shore.
Down from the storied Past tremble the legends still
As the woe of the Indian maiden wails over from Heart Break Hill,

213

And, alas! the unnamable footprint! and the lapstone dropped below!
From places so pleasant—poor devil—no wonder he hated to go!
Fair is my realm, saith the mother, but fairest of all my domain,
Are the sons I have reared and the daughters, sturdy of body and brain,
Tender of heart and of conscience, ready with flag unfurled,
For service at home, or, if need be, to the uttermost bounds of the world.
Never my bells of the morning fail to the morning air
With their summons of young minds to learning, with their summons of all souls to prayer.
Gracious yon pile where are stored me the treasures of thought to-day—
More gracious my children who poured me their wealth of the far Cathay.
Mourn your lost leader, my hamlet, sore needed, yet never again
To mingle his words of wisdom in the wide councils of men;
Nor forget whose hand first plucked its secret from the Mountain-King's stormy breast,
And held up the torch of freedom over the great Northwest.

214

Thrilled to him, hearts of the people, whose eyes were a smouldering fire,
Whose voice to the listening multitude rang like an angel's lyre,
But I hear the trill of light laughter in the thickets of feathery fronds,
Where a little lad dares for white lilies the deep of Chebacco ponds.
Rest in the peace of God forever, O man of good-will,
Who gathered the healing of Heaven in the sunshine of Sweet Briar Hill.
Far from the city's tumult, with my soft airs overblown—
In my arms of love I hold him, a stranger, and yet my own.
Where the footsteps of Maro wandered, where the waters of Helicon flow,
Where the cedars of Lebanon wave, where the path of a people should go,
O blessed blind eyes that see—from the wrong dividing the right,
Shed on the darkness of day the gleam of your radiant night!
And thou, O Desire of the Nation, loved from the sea to the sea,

215

High above stain as a star, still upward thy pathway be!
By thy blood, of the stately Midland, by thy strength, of the Northern Pine,
By the sacred fire bright on thy hearthstone, I name thee and claim thee mine.
Come to me, dear my children, from every land under the sun;
Nay, I feel by the stir of my spirit that all worlds are but one;
Nay, I know by my quickening heart-throbs, they are gathering by my side—
Veiled by God's grace with His glory—the Dead who have never died.
Fathers whose steadfast uprightness, their sons through no time can forget—
Mothers whose tenderness breathes in many an old home yet—
Hushed is the air for their coming, holy the light with their love;
What shall the grateful earth pledge to the Heaven above?
The best that we have to give: loyalty staunch and pure
To the land they love and the God they served, while the earth and the heavens endure.
We can bear to the future no greater than to us the past hath brought—
Faith to the lowliest duty, truth to the loftiest thought.

Daughter of Hannah Stanwood, granddaughter of Capt. Isaac Stanwood of Ipswich.

Hon. Allen W. Dodge, of Hamilton.

Rev. Manasseh Cutler, D. D., of Hamilton.

Hon. Rufus Choate, of Essex.

Rev. John Cotton Smith, D. D.

Rev. John Phelps Cowles, married to the daughter of Eunice Stanwood, granddaughter of Capt. Isaac Stanwood, of Ipswich.