The select poems of Dr. Thomas Dunn English (exclusive of the "Battle lyrics")

Three kings there are to rule the world, and mightier none could be;
Howe'er he strive, no man alive from their control is free.
And one is yellow, and one is black, and one is white as snow:
The yellow one is the elder one, but not the stronger though.
By these and theirs the world's affairs are rigorously controlled;
And the names these mighty monarchs bear are Cotton, Coal, and Gold.

Cotton, the white, and Gold, the bright, and Coal, the sooty-grim—
Each sways a potent sceptre o'er the many who bow to him.
They are not rival sovereigns, but close allies and friends;
And each controls the other, and each to the other bends;
And each is kin to the other, and strangely, by my troth,
For Gold is the son of Cotton and Coal, though born before them both.

King Cotton in the Southland dwells, far in the South alone;
The heavy hoe his sceptre is, the dented gin his throne:
King Cotton in the Southland dwells, and there his court he holds,
And there his servants gather the fleece from a hundred thousand folds:

526

King Cotton in the Southland dwells, but roams as suits his whim;
And he is free on every sea—no port is closed to him.

Though like a cowled and corded friar in rope and sack-cloth drest,
The nations clap their hands for joy when comes their welcome guest;
To build him stately ships they rob the forest of its trees;
They rend the solid rock to rear his hives of human bees;
And from their toiling peasantry they send in every land
A countless host of servitors to wait at his command.

Wherever in our Northern clime his smile of favor beams,
Arise the castles of his peers on the banks of pleasant streams.
Ay! peers are they whom serfs obey in many a crowded room—
The barons of the spindles and the nobles of the loom.
One time good Gold was got by arms, but now our Cotton lords
By spinning-jennies win their wealth, and not by knightly swords.

King Cotton is a kindly king—through him, in autumn time,
Green fields grow white in the morning light, with the snow of the Southern clime;
Through him the loaded barges go, drawn on their many trips;
Through him the beryl seas are flecked with stout and gallant ships;
Through him a myriad shuttles click, and countless spindles whirr;
Through him the smoky towns arise, with all their din and stir.

527

A rain of woe would pour around were Cotton cold and dead;
Then were not countless millions clad, then were not millions fed.
A blight upon his flowery fields, the world with fear would pale;
From quivering lips in crowded streets break famine's feeble wail;
But while he flourishes in pride, then woe and want are banned,
Swarth labor laughs and sings at toil, and plenty fills the land.

King Coal dwells ever underground, surrounded by his gnomes,
Who carve him chambers in the earth, and scoop out rocky domes.
Ever they work by torch-light there—the clear sun never shines
To glad the heart of the pygmies toiling, moiling in the mines;
But still they burrow like patient moles, they work and gayly sing,
Their voices ringing through the vaults in praise of their grimy king.

Black are the diamonds of his crown, and black his robes also,
Yet though Cotton and Gold may reign above, this Coal is king below—
Down in the bowels of England, where first his rule began
The torrid Chiriqui region, the strange land of Japan,
Ohio's river-riven plains, Virginia's ridges tall,
And the hills of Pennsylvania, these own him one and all.

528

Yet his a sway on upper earth—a sway it may not shun—
He spreads o'er crowded cities a murky cloud and dun;
His is the roar of furnaces, the rattling noise of mills,
The scream of the river steamer, flung back from banks and hills;
His are the one-eyed Kuklopes that speed on the iron rails,
Through echoing clefts in riven hills, and down the pleasant vales.

He comes from his home in the rock profound, to wake the busy din.
With the voice of his steam-serf, roaring like the sound of a culverin;
He goes to the broad green prairies, to the desert plains of sand,
And one is peopled with thousands, and the other is fertile land.
Where yesterday the wild-deer roved, and the hunter's rifle rang,
The sunburst fierce of the forges glows, and the ponderous hammers clang.

Gods! what a sight, those forges bright, and what a steady roar—
The voice of the nor'west tempest on the lone and rocky shore!
The stithy of Hephaistos grim, the halting son of Zeus,
Glowed not so fierce what time he forged the shield of Achilleus;
And never the giants sweaty and huge, in Ætna's fiery hall,
More terrible seemed than these appear, as the hammers rise and fall.

King Coal beheld the swarming towns, in the silent hours of night,
A refuge for assassins in the dim and faint lamplight;

529

Then pity filled his royal heart; the blood from out his veins,
And the spirit within him he gave to light the darksome streets and lanes.
The craven murderer at the glare shrank baffled to his den,
And Coal another blessing gave to glad the souls of men.

King Gold was once of low estate; he rose from out the earth;
A base-born carle he was at first—he knew not whence his birth.
Man found him lying in the sands, a friendless outcast there,
And took the yellow foundling home, and gave him treatment fair.
So base of mind, so vile of heart, and so forgetful he.
That o'er his friend he rules as though he were of high degree.

King Gold was once of low estate, but now in palaces,
Whereof he has in every land, he dwells in royal ease—
Palaces rare and splendid, he owns them everywhere;
Their walls of lapis-lazuli, and studded with rubies rare,
Propped with pillars of Parian marble, lined with malachite,
And hung with silken curtains, that temper the noonday light.

He feeds upon the choicest meats—upon his board must be
The patés brought from Strasburg, and turtle from the sea;
And in his cups of amethyst that glitter there and glow,
The wines of oldest vintages in amber currents flow,
Madeira, Xeres, Chambertin, Champagne, and Montrachet,
Johannisberg, Château Lafitte, Catawba, and Tokai.

King Gold one time was meanly clad in dusky-yellow vest,
But now in purple velvet robes and silken hose is drest;
On satin cushions takes repose, with vases in the room,
To hold rare flowers that fill the air with delicate scent's perfume;

530

Around him are his ready knaves, to serve, or to defend;
Around him are his parasites in homage low to bend.

When human kings array their hosts, he says, “'Tis not my will!”
He calms the tempest ere it bursts, and whispers, “Peace! be still!”
War hushes at his steady glance, and at his potent word,
To a ploughshare turns the keen-edged lance, a sickle is the sword.
The battle comes not now from kings; for leave to fight they call
On the cabinets of the Juden-Strasse, Lombard Street, and Wall.

There never was in Pagan lands idolatry profound
As that which now in Christendom bows millions to the ground.
King Gold goes forth like Juggernaut, the earth beneath him reels;
Down fall the blinded worshippers before his chariot wheels;
The zealot slaves are blissful all, crushed, writhing on the sod—
The dogs made friends with Cotton and Coal, but worshipped Gold as God.

These are the kings whose thrones we serve, and much we praise them when
They feed the hopes, and shape the course, and aid the will of men.
Without the three but poor we be, the world were sad and drear,
And man a savage churl indeed, if neither king were here.
So laud to Gold, who bears our purse, to Coal, whose toil is sore,
And greater laud to Cotton, who feeds ten million men or more.

531

King Coal a mighty monarch is, but nathless is controlled
To do the work of Cotton, and swell the pride of Gold;
King Gold has empire widest far, yet, though it chafe his soul,
He tribute pays to Cotton, and a heavy tax to Coal;
But Cotton he is king of kings, and Coal, the black and grim,
And Gold, the yellow and smiling, are vassals both to him.

SONG OF FIRE.

Sometime prisoned at the centre, with my throes I shake the sphere;
Through the snowy-topped volcanoes, at the surface I appear.
Then I burst through chains that bind me, startle mortals with my power;
Over prairies wide I scurry, feed on forests, towns devour.
Strike the ships midway in ocean, and the teeming towns devour.

Fire they call me. I am father of the granite rocks that lie
Ages deep beneath the mountains, unperceived of mortal eye;
At my breath they sprang to being, at my touch their crystals came,
That were merely shapeless atoms ere I kissed them with my flame,
Ere with ardor I embraced them, ere I kissed them with my flame.

Rarest gems of countless value, nuggets of the yellow gold
That through all the time historic, men and empires have controlled;

532

And the grim and swarthy iron, conqueror on land and sea,
With the many meaner metals, owe their birth and shape to me.
Gleaming ores and dazzling crystals owe their birth and shape to me.

When the rolling of the thunder strikes the trembling wretches dumb,
When the vision-blinding lightning rends the murky clouds, I come.
Fear attends me, horror after, ruin round me wide I cast.
Men my name with bated breathing mutter when my steps have passed;
Gazing voiceless on the ashes where my terrible steps have passed.

Rear they palaces of beauty, fair without and rare within,
Stores of hand-work, filled with fabrics, wealth and profits hard to win;
Temples grand, with costly altars, where the wretch for sin atones.
I appear and they are ruins, shapeless heaps of blackened stones—
Molten metal, crumbled columns, timbers charred, and blackened stones.

Not alone on land I smite them, but with red, devouring lips
On the ocean sate my hunger with their richly freighted ships.
Swarthy sailors, pallid women, pray in vain for mercy there,
While my crackling and my roaring swell their chorus of despair—
While I dance from deck to mast-head to their chorus of despair.

533

In the densely crowded city, without pity, I affright
Startled wretches roused from slumber, in the still and sombre night.
Tenement-house or brown-stone palace, either is the same to me:
If they manage to subdue me, gloomy will their triumph be—
Toppled walls upon my foeman tokens of my vengeance be.

Yet malign I am not always; witness for me truly when
I become the humble servant of the toiling sons of men.
Drive the engine, heat the furnace, melt the ore, and soften steel;
Like the monarch in the story, aid the wife to cook a meal—
Monarch, wandering from earth's centre, aid the wife to cook a meal.

Though they see me when the lightning strikes in wrath the lofty domes,
Yet I love to cheer the dwellers in the humble cottage homes.
From the hearth my flickering shadows on the wall I cast at night,
While I crackle—that's my laughter—at the children's wild delight;
As to see those tossing shadows they display their wild delight.

Foe of life have mortals called me—foe to all that breathes or stirs;
Hence the terror-stricken pagans are my abject worshippers.
Life! there were no life without me; and what time I shall expire,
All things growing, all things living, all shall pass away with fire.
Air, heat, motion, breath, existence—all shall pass away with fire.

534

In the solemn Day of Judgment, at the awful time of doom,
When all quick and dead are parted, these to light and those to gloom,
Then the earth that one time bore me, wrapped within my wild embrace,
Shall behold my final splendor as I bear her out of space;
And we twain shall pass together, pass forever out of space.

THE LOCOMOTIVE.

They call me a mass of iron and brass; they say that a spirit I lack;
That my real soul is the grimy man in the wooden pen on my back;
That the flame I devour and the steam I breathe are from wood and from water alone,
And I have no mind but what men bestow, those beings of flesh and bone.

Let them say if they will whatever they will, though had they observed me when
I was scurrying over the iron rails, the wonder and pride of men—
Had they watched as they might, they had seen a will, as I sped on my iron path,
And a purpose of terror when once I awoke, and aroused to a terrible wrath.

I have borne their yoke in a patient way for many a weary hour—
The pity that filled my massive breast forbade me to use my power;

535

But I am not always a passive thing, nor forever with joy I scream,
As I rumble and clatter and speed me along, with my nostrils breathing steam.

For when they believe me their thrall and drudge, my patience a moment fails,
And then, with a thousand wretches behind, I leap the limiting rails,
Over the lofty embankment spring, and plunge to the depths below,
While the careless laugh of the people I drag is changed to a shriek of woe.

And so to-night on the stroke of twelve with my burning eye I peer
Into the darkness that gathers before, and I startle the engineer;
For I whirl from side to side, and I pant, and I struggle and scream with delight—
Down brakes! there's a tree on the track ahead, and Death rides aboard to-night.

Some are asleep in their seats, and dream; and others, in accents gay,
Are telling light stories of what they have seen, or discussing the news of the day;
And some are thinking of things long past; and others again there be
Who are longing to meet their children and wives in the homes they never may see.

A jar and a crash! I yell as I leap, and feel my stout ribs bend,
While the cars they crush like houses of card, and their strong beams splinter and rend;

536

And here is a head, and there is a limb; and mark, when the lights are brought,
The mangled mass that once was alive, and walked and talked and thought.

You say that I am an inanimate thing; that I neither know nor feel;
That merely steam with an iron bar is moving my driving-wheel.
Why, I planned this thing, and brooded alone, and thought of it day by day,
And waited my chance, and bided my time, as I sped on my tiresome way.

You builded a monster of iron and brass, and fed it with water and flame,
And you thought it a creature your finger-touch, whenever you would, could tame;
Had you known its temper, or studied its mood, you never had felt its might,
And the mangled dead on the cold earth spread were living and merry to-night.

THE BALLAD OF THE COLORS.

A gentleman of courtly air,
Of old Virginia he;
A damsel from New Jersey State,
Of matchless beauty she;
They met as fierce antagonists—
The reason why, they say,
Her eyes were of the Federal blue,
And his, Confederate grey.

537

They entered on a fierce campaign,
And when the fight began,
It seemed as though the strategy
Had no determinate plan.
Each watched the other's movements well
While standing there at bay—
One struggling for the Federal blue,
One for Confederate grey.

We all looked on with anxious eyes
To see their forces move,
And none could tell which combatant
At last would victor prove.
They marched and countermarched with skill,
Avoiding well the fray;
Here, lines were seen of Federal blue,
And there, Confederate grey.

At last he moved his force in mass,
And sent her summons there
That she should straight capitulate
Upon conditions fair.
“As you march forth the flags may fly,
The drums and bugles play;
But yield those eyes of Federal blue
To the Confederate grey.”

“You are the foe,” she answer sent,
“To maiden such as I;
I'll face you with a dauntless heart,
And conquer you, or die.
A token of the sure result
The vaulted skies display;
For there above is Federal blue,
Below, Confederate grey.”

538

Sharp-shooting on each flank began,
And 'mid manœuvres free
The rattle of the small-talk with
Big guns of repartee,
Mixed with the deadly glance of eyes
Amid the proud array,
There met in arms the Federal blue
And the Confederate grey.

Exhausted by the fight at length,
They called a truce to rest;
When lo! another force appeared
Upon a mountain's crest.
And as it came the mountain down
Amid the trumpet's bray,
Uncertain stood the Federal blue
And the Confederate grey.

A corps of stout free lances these
Who poured upon the field,
Field-Marshal Cupid in command,
Who swore they both must yield;
They both should conquer; both divide
The honors of the day;
And proudly with the Federal blue
March the Confederate grey.

His troops were fresh, and theirs were worn;
What could they but agree
That both should be the conquerors,
And both should captives be?
So they presented arms, because
Dan Cupid held the sway,
And joined in peace the Federal blue
With the Confederate grey.

539

Twelve years have fled. I passed to-day
The fort they built, and saw
A sight to strike a bachelor
With spirit-thrilling awe.
Deployed a corps of infantry,
But less for drill than play;
And some had eyes of Federal blue,
And some Confederate grey.

MY PLACE IN DREAM-LAND.

I have a farm in Dream-land—
I've owned it many a year,
Although with want and hunger
I struggle often here.
There are the greenest meadows,
Where sunlight ever plays,
And there are fertile orchards,
And fields of waving maize;
And there are lowing cattle,
And views of distant hills,
And paths through wood and coppice
By sweetly singing rills.
Oh! pleasant farm in Dream-land!

I have a house in Dream-land,
A mansion new and gay,
Though lodging in the garret
Of a tenement-house to-day;
A house with forty chambers,
Each with a downy bed,
Where curtains deck the casements,
And carpets hush the tread;

540

A table spread with silver,
A gallery filled with books,
And in the spacious kitchen
At least a dozen cooks.
Oh! mansion brave in Dream-land!

I have a ship in Dream-land,
That sails the Mystic Sea,
With pearls and spices laden,
Brought from the East for me;
All fine things in its cargo
That man could wish to own,
The spoils of every nation,
And these are mine alone.
Its sails are azure satin,
Its masts are ivory white,
And all time it is sailing,
Sailing by day and night.
Oh! stately ship in Dream-land!

I have a friend in Dream-land,
He left me long ago;
Amid the roar of battle
He fell before the foe.
He took with him the tokens
Of many a pleasant time,
When we were friends together,
And both in manhood's prime.
And there he dwells in Dream-land,
And plainly I can see
He tarries with impatience,
Waiting so long for me.
Oh! absent friend in Dream-land!

Some of these days to Dream-land
In that good ship I'll sail;

541

To see that farm in Dream-land
I'll journey without fail;
And in that house in Dream-land
I'll sit the live-long day,
And with my friend in Dream-land
Pass all the time away.
Fill, winds, those sails of satin
Now on the Mystic Sea,
That to the port of Dream-land
The ship may carry me!
Oh! days to come in Dream-land!

THE RIVER.

By sloping mountains crowned with gold and azure,
By greenest meadows where the violets be,
By cliffs with many a turret and embrasure,
Rushes the roaring river to the sea.

Yonder a gilded pinnace, and beside it
A ruder boat, whose look does not agree
With its companion's splendor—good betide it!
Rough though it seem it yet shall reach the sea.

A poor wretch yonder floats on flags and rushes,
Rifled from yonder swamp; yet full of glee,
Even as he floats, a flood of music gushes
From his bare throat—he too shall reach the sea.

And some on rafts, and some to rough logs clinging,
And some on corks, or bladders, floating free;
Some calmly drift, and some, the water flinging,
Spatter their fellow-travellers to the sea.

542

My barque is on the river swiftly sailing,
Caught by the current it goes rapidly;
At either side the oars in water trailing,
Stop not my certain voyage to the sea.

Around me voyagers who strive to sink me;
Some heed me not, and others friendly be;
I heed not either, care not what they think me;
'Twill matter not when once I reach the sea.

Roar, rushing river! bear me on your waters,
Past vale and mountain, cliff and mead and tree;
The first and last of Adam's sons and daughters
Must sail this river, and must reach that sea.

We sail by day—the sun, with grey dawn blending,
Rises when we embark, and soars as we
Sail on, and sinks as we approach our ending,
Then sets forever when we reach the sea.

Whither beyond? Shall we forever wander
Upon that ocean? Shall we shipwrecked be,
Or reach some port beyond? In vain to ponder;
None have returned who entered on that sea.

OBLIVION.

There is a region dark and dun,
Whereto we slide but never run;
Which early was from chaos won,
Yet marks nor metes nor bounds has none—
They call that land, Oblivion.

543

No bells are there with clanging ring,
No birds are there to twitter and sing;
To reach its borders you must bring
Yourself to the edge of everything,
And then drop off—poor scatterling.

In rusted quiet are the vanes
Upon its spires; the window-panes
The spiders' workshops; naught complains
Of fears or throbs or aches or pains,
While wandering o'er its foggy plains.

It is the realm of Nowhere, where
The listless dwellers have no care,
No bitter past, nor future fair;
Memory and hope are useless there—
Hence from their eyes that vacant stare.

The ghosts—for dwellers there are those—
Have long time since, with many throes,
Stripped from themselves both flesh and woes,
That to the air, which coldly blows,
Their naked souls they might expose.

As in a dream they go and come,
Their voices ever hushed and dumb—
(Bees, straying there forget to hum)
They need not senses to benumb,
Hemp-juice nor wine of opium.

For reading they have little knack,
Although of books there is no lack,
All bound in suits of dullest black,
On which the worms have left their track—
The whole world's literary wrack.

544

Monarchs who ruled o'er kingdoms vast,
In olden ages dead and past,
By later monarchs overcast,
As shall Napoleon be at last,
Stalk those dominions grim and ghast.

Poets, who deemed their idle song,
Had perfect rhythm, amply strong
To shield it from the critic's thong,
There, with their lays forgotten long,
Silent and sallow, ever throng.

There struts the votary of the stage,
Who from the old poetic page,
Portrayed the grief and fear and rage,
Meant by the bard as lessons sage,
To gazers in a former age.

The sage and stern philosopher,
Dull gravity's prime minister,
Who let no passion pulses stir—
(Deeming who felt had stooped to err)
Moves aimless there, a wanderer.

Old thoughts, with proud and stately air,
Old projects, wonderful and rare,
Old promises, well-meant and fair,
Old grand designs, beyond compare—
Forevermore are floating there.

It is a land of fogs and mist
Which sunlight never yet has kist;
And that is why to it, I wist,
Move slowly the somnambulist,
The dreamer and the rhapsodist.

545

THE OLD FARM GATE.

In gilded saloons, where the fairest of belles
Fling around me their subtlest of glamour and spells,
I broke through their magic, I mocked at their art,
Unmoved in my fancy, untouched in my heart;
But yielded a captive, well pleased at my fate,
When Dora I met at the old farm gate.
When Dora I met,
When Dora I met,
When Dora I met at the old farm gate.

I passed, rod in hand, on my way to the brook,
And planned as I went little fishes to hook.
She stood there in silence, half smiling, half shy,
And moved from the pathway to let me go by.
Ah! who would not bite when such charms were the bait?
So Dora caught me at the old farm gate—
So Dora caught me,
So Dora caught me,
So Dora caught me at the old farm gate.

We had met and had parted full often before,
But we met on that morn to be parted no more;
The light in her eye and the flush on her cheek
Emboldened my tongue of my loving to speak.
What cared I for trout? They might lie there and wait,
Now Dora said “yes” at the old farm gate—
Now Dora said “yes,”
Now Dora said “yes,”
Now Dora said “yes” at the old farm gate.

546

LULLABY.

So tired on this bright day of summer,
So faint with the fragrance of flowers,
Her tongue than the green grass is dumber,
Her senses the heat overpowers;
And what, now all these overcome her,
Shall we do for this darling of ours?

A mantle of velvet we give her,
And jewels that star-like shall gleam,
And a crown of red poppies to quiver
And nod as she crosses the stream—
As she crosses the still Slumber River,
And enters the broad land of Dream.

In that land let her wander at pleasure,
And visit the people of Sleep,
Who are lavish of glittering treasure
They rather would give her than keep,
And share in their joy beyond measure,
Till her heart in an ecstasy leap.

No black, frightful vision pursue her,
No trouble her senses affright;
But bright shapes and beautiful woo her,
Each clad in a vesture of light;
And exquisite pleasure thrill through her
The whole of the sweet summer night.

And if of her bliss she should weary,
As weary she possibly may,

547

Let the soul of our golden-haired dearie
Come back to its dwelling of clay,
To make our existence less dreary,
And add a new light to the day.

THE ISLAND OF THE SOUL.

Far in a distant ocean,
Hid from all mortal eyes,
Where the sea has no sound nor motion
And there are always azure skies,
An island lies.

There rise the lilac mountains;
There palms their leaves unfold;
There bubble life-renewing fountains,
Pellucid, crystalline, and cold,
Through sands of gold.

There show their hues the rarest
Blossoms of fragrance sweet;
There fruits are grown, the very fairest,
So rich and luscious, of their meat
A king might eat.

In cold grey ether swimming
The ruling stars at night,
The yellow crescent moon bedimming,
Throw o'er that isle a faintly bright,
Uncertain light.

548

The sun at dawn arising,
Through orange-golden skies
A flood of glory sheds, surprising,
That in its many colors vies
With rainbow dyes.

Ah! dazzling past all telling,
In all its wondrous sheen,
Fit for a king's or poet's dwelling,
This island, which no man has seen,
Is, and has been.

But on that marvellous island
Nothing that breathes is found,
Neither on lowland nor on highland,
Nor in the air, nor on the ground,
Moving around.

No bird, at spring-time coming,
Flits there on tireless wing;
No leaping brutes nor insects humming
Leap there nor hum—no frolicking
Of living thing.

Yet through its valleys fertile
Go forms of vapor pale;
Phantoms in hosts each other hurtle;
Yet wherefore, or to what avail,
To find we fail.

And there are voices heard there,
And whispers, sobs, and sighs,
And its recesses often stirred there
By sounds from forms no mortal eyes
May recognize.

549

At times a peal of laughter,
As from a joyous throng;
Then low and anguished wailing after,
As though some weakling from the strong
Were suffering wrong.

And now and then there passes
O'er all a dark brown shade,
Deepening the green of trees and grasses,
And darkening, ere its presence fade,
Meadow and glade.

One instant; then new brightness
Burst forth, the gloom to chase,
And rainbow-tints and golden lightness,
In which no shade the senses trace,
Illume the place.

Soon, though we may not know it,
That isle shall be no more;
'Twill sink, forgot, save by the poet,
And the waves swallow up its shore,
Closing all o'er.

Then voyagers shall wonder,
Sailing past dreamily,
Where and how many fathoms under
The surface of the silent sea
That isle may be.

550

AT THE GRAVE OF ALICE.

While yet the leafy June was here,
And fresh in loveliness the year,
And skies were bright and pure at noon,
And brooklets sang in slumberous tune,
And purple bathed the eventide,
My young life's darling, Alice, died.

The passing world shows no surprise
Nor sorrow, when a maiden dies;
Avarice puts forth his grasp the same;
Fraud shows his usual lack of shame;
Capped Folly, grinning, shakes his bells,
And Ignorance to crime impels.

They cannot mourn—with such as they
Hers was no sympathetic way.
Hers were the grand old woods, whose shade
Sweet calm within her bosom made;
Hers were the birds, the flowers, the rills,
The mist-crowned, everlasting hills.

Nursling of nature, who could see
Naught dull or wrong around, was she;
But something found of new and good
In noisy street or silent wood;
And from all things the lessons drew
That made her good, and kept her true.

Amid the solemn solitude
Where chastened sorrow comes to brood,

551

Where granite shaft and marble tomb,
And plants and flowers relieve the gloom,
And song-birds haunt the leafy shade,
Lowly in earth her form we laid.

Full forty years have passed away
Since passed that unforgotten day,
And thoughts of her have grown to be
A dreamy, tender memory,
As I, long exiled from the land,
Have come beside her grave to stand.

How vividly before my eyes
All things of early days arise;
The meadows green, the fields of corn,
The schoolhouse where we went at morn,
The chestnut trees upon the hill,
The long, deep pond at Sinker's mill,

The husking in the later days,
Where, all unskilled in lovers' ways,
I won the red ear's precious right,
Yet claimed it not in others' sight,
Too timid in my bashfulness
To touch the lips I longed to press.

The long walk homeward through the lane
Comes freshly to my mind again,
Where, in the white moon's silvery shine,
I won her promise to be mine—
No pledge in words, but sweeter still,
The glance that made each fibre thrill.

Let all these vanish! why should I
Bring them from where they quiet lie?

552

I may not gain my youth once more;
I may not her to life restore;
I may not hope by these to win
From its deep grave, the might-have-been.

MY FARM.

I bought myself a little farm to-day:
It lies upon a sunny slope and green,
And from the bustle of mankind away;
No fairer homestead e'er was seen.

I had an earnest purpose in my life,
Which was to own some acres, and a cot
Where I could shun the town's incessant strife,
And live contented with my lot.

I did not hope for much: enough for me
A hundred acres set in pasture, where
A drove of blooded horses I might see
Grazing in groups, or singly there;

In fertile fields three hundred acres more,
Where golden wheat and emerald maize might grow;
A hundred more of orchard, with a store
Of luscious fruit in every row;

A hundred more in woodland, where the trees
Should temper summer heat with shadows brown,
Their limbs in autumn wrestling with the breeze,
And flinging rattling nut-showers down;

553

A hundred acres for the meek-eyed kine;
Just twice as much where sheep might rove and feed;
And twice that number, hedged by eglantine,
Where blossoms blossoms should succeed;

A hundred acres round my cot in lawn—
My modest cot, three stories in its height,
And flanked by towers whose roofs should light with dawn,
And redden with the dawn of night.

Nothing around should tell of luxury;
Some easy chairs for comfort; lofty halls;
Soft rugs to hush the tread; simplicity
Even in the satin on the walls.

A few good books—ten thousand at the most—
In a snug library; some porcelain rare,
And silver plate, that I might play the host
To some poor beggar wandering there.

A coach to take my wife to church or town;
A grand piano, and a harp or two;
And then, as contrast to her silken gown,
Jewels the dame would need—a few.

Of course my cot upon a rise would stand,
Beside a river, near it brooks and rills;
And in the distance should a view command
Of misty vales and purple hills.

There when my daily toil at eve was done,
I hoped to sit and take my well-won ease,
And watch the glory of the setting sun
Flaming the water, rocks, and trees.

554

THE THREE SISTERS.

Here in the garden Rose rambles with me,
Here where the flowers are all blossoming free;
Modest white candytufts, flaunting sword lilies,
Low-growing pinks and sweet-scented stock-gillies;
Queen of them all is the rose—ah! the rose!
Fairest and rarest it bourgeons and blows.

Bearing before us their bright spikes of fire,
Salvias ask us to gaze and admire:
Here in our pathway the pansies are spreading
Purple and gold—a gay road to a wedding;
Over them all towers the rose—ah! the rose!
Fairest and rarest it bourgeons and blows.

Rose listens timidly here as I speak,
Eyelids low drooping, a flush on her cheek;
Flashes a moment the shyest of glances—
Glance that tells much while my soul it entraces;
Trembling, a rosebud she plucks—ah! the rose!
Fairest and rarest it bourgeons and blows.

Two of the sisters to meet us have come,
Both of them greet us, but Rose has grown dumb,
Lily, as always, is gracious and stately;
Pansy is curious, but stands there sedately;
Rose deeply blushes—ah! she is the rose
In my heart's garden that bourgeons and blows.

555

TOM SAXON.

Tom Saxon, of Fluvanna,
Here seated at the board,
Where humor mates with sentiment
And wit with wine is poured,—
Here, while this honest bowl I drain,
The past comes over me again,
And fondness, in a gentle rain,
Bedews my soul, Tom Saxon.

Tom Saxon, of Fluvanna,
To see your eyes on mine
Bent with such noble confidence,
More joys me than the wine—
Yet this is of a vintage which
Has lain within the dusky niche
Wherein it slumbered and grew rich
For many years, Tom Saxon.

Tom Saxon, of Fluvanna,
On yon piano's keys,
My daughter's fingers often rain
The sweetest melodies,
But never fair musician brought
From those by art and genius taught,
Such tones, with dainty rhythm fraught,
As leave your lips, Tom Saxon.

Tom Saxon, of Fluvanna,
I press your manly hand,
And many pleasant thoughts arise
As face to face we stand.

556

For we have shared both smiles and tears,
Have halved each other's hopes and fears,
And side by side, for thirty years,
Have fought the world, Tom Saxon.

Tom Saxon, of Fluvanna,
Just fifteen years ago,
The schooner passed through Norfolk bay
And flecked its way with snow.
I fell while gazing on the wave,
And would have found an ocean grave,
Had not your courage come to save
My life that day, Tom Saxon.

Tom Saxon, of Fluvanna,
When evil tongues assailed,
And evil hearts bred evil words,
Your friendship never failed.
You bade me scorn to flee or cower,
You raised me in that bitter hour,
You made me well assert the power,
Which else had sunk, Tom Saxon.

Tom Saxon, of Fluvanna,
When want around me fell,
Your purse was mine, your counsel mine,
Your sympathy as well.
Yours was the gold redeemed my land,
Yours was the voice that bade me stand,
Yours was the pressure of the hand
That soothed my pride, Tom Saxon.

Tom Saxon, of Fluvanna,
Your foes would crush you now,
The tongue of slander wound the soul,
That force had failed to bow;

557

The reptile want is at your door,
It soils your hearth and slimes your floor—
May Fate do thus to me, and more,
If I prove false, Tom Saxon.

Tom Saxon, of Fluvanna,
God bless you from his throne,
And give you kindly ripening
As you have nobly grown.
Your hand in mine—one goblet more!
The sky may frown, the tempest roar.
Woe flies from out the open door
Of our one heart, Tom Saxon.

Tom Saxon, of Fluvanna,
Think not abroad to roam
To seek for gold in other climes,
But bide with us at home.
Beneath this roof, beside this hearth,
With those who know and prize your worth,
Rest, till we both shall pass from earth,
My dear old friend, Tom Saxon.

THE RAILWAY RIDE.

In their yachts on ocean gliding,
On their steeds Arabian riding,
Whirled o'er snows on tinkling sledges,
Men forget their woe and pain;
What the pleasure then should fill them—
What the ecstasy should thrill them—
Borne with ponderous speed, and thunderous,
O'er the narrow iron plain.

558

Restless as a dream of vengeance,
Mark you there the iron engines
Blowing steam from snorting nostrils,
Moving each upon its track;
Sighing, panting, anxious, eager,
Not with purpose mean or meagre,
But intense intent for motion,
For the liberty they lack.

Now one screams in triumph, for the
Engine-driver, grimed and swarthy,
Lays his hand upon the lever,
And the steed is loose once more;
Off it moves, and fast and faster,
With no urging from the master,
Till the awed earth shakes in terror
At the rumbling and the roar.

Crossing long and thread-like bridges,
Spanning streams and cleaving ridges,
Sweeping over broad green meadows,
That in starless darkness lay,
How the engine rocks and clatters!
Showers of fire around it scatters,
While its blazing eye outpeering
Looks for perils in the way.

To yon tunnel-drift careering,
In its brown mouth disappearing,
Passed from sight and passed from hearing,
Silence follows like a spell;
Then a sudden sound-burst surges,
As the train from earth emerges
With a scream of exultation,
With a wild and joyous yell.

559

What the chariot swift of Ares
Which a god to battle carries?
What the steeds the rash boy handled
Harnessed to the sun-god's wain?
Those are mystic, this is real;
Born not of the past ideal,
But of craft and strength and purpose,
Love of speed and thirst of gain.

Oh, what wildness! oh, what gladness!
Oh, what joy akin to madness!
Oh, what reckless feeling raises
Us to-day beyond the stars!
What to us all human ant-hills,
Fame fools sigh for, land that man tills,
In the swinging and the clattering
And the rattling of the cars?

OUR CHRISTMAS TURKEY.

Sit down at the table, good comrade of mine;
Here is cheer, and some flasks of the vintage of Rhine;
Here is warmth, here is comfort, and smiles that betray
But a part of the welcome that greets you to-day;
And here in the centre, enthroned on a plate,
Superb in surroundings and royal in state,
You behold (why, what cynic could give him a scowl?),
With his cranberry courtiers, our national fowl.

Folk call him a Turkey—the name is absurd;
This fowl is a purely American bird.

560

His strut and his gobble, his arrogant air,
His plumage of bronze, speak my countryman there.
But no! he's a coward—ah! well, that depends!
He can fight for his hen and his chicks and his friends;
And in one thing he shows an American soul,
You never can force him to crawl through a hole.

There's an edge to the carving-knife polished and bright;
The plates are all warm and the napkins all white;
Before us the celery gleams through its vase,
And the cranberry-jelly is set in its place.
Thrust the sharp fork astraddle our beauty's breastbone;
From his side cut thin slices, the whitest e'er known,
For the ladies, God bless them! but my ruder sense
Takes the thigh, and the last part that gets o'er the fence.

Ah! white meat or brown meat, it matters not much;
'Tis taste we must please, not our seeing nor touch;
And with either for dinner we're not at a loss,
If we've celery in plenty and cranberry-sauce;
For, then, with a flask of good Rudesheimer wine,
We can manage, I fancy, in comfort to dine.
Nay, more; with a turkey like this at command,
Who'd not be a patriot, proud of his land?

They had figs in Judea, and fatlings so fine,
Young kids dressed with olives, and what they called wine;
They had palm-trees and date-trees, and odors as rare
As the sweetest of roses could fling on the air.
What their fruits and their flowers to these cranberries red,
And their palm and their date trees this celery instead?
While as for their kids and their lambs and their quails,
One turkey—let's eat, for comparison fails.

561

TWILIGHT.

In Summer even,
When day is done,
And crimson curtains
Obscure the sun,
The many voices
Of night begin,
With notes discordant
And tremulous din;
But through them faintly
The quick ear hears
A strain of music
From former years.

My guardian spirit,
On noiseless wings,
Comes to my chamber
And sweetly sings.
He sings of feelings
That long have gone,
Of love and fondness
At manhood's dawn;
The words repeating
That once I said,
When she was living
Who now is dead.

From years long faded,
Through woe and wrack,
The time long-buried
Comes sudden back,

562

When all was colored
With rosy hue—
Each man trustworthy,
Each woman true;
When Hope was urging
Her witching schemes,
The days romances,
The nights sweet dreams.

I hear the breezes
From coppiced hills;
I hear the murmurs
Of pebbled rills;
I hear the rustling
Of birchen trees;
I hear the droning
Of wandering bees;
I hear the sighing
Of fir and pine;
I hear the lowing
Of plodding kine.

My lost, sweet Alice,
The young and fair,
Once more is standing
Beside my chair.
I feel her fingers
My temples press—
A soft, low whisper,
A fond caress.
I turn to clasp her,
As once before—
Ah! white-haired dreamer!
No more! no more!

563

For now the twilight
Away has passed,
And deeper darkness
Is gathering fast.
The sounds that thrilled me
Are heard no more,
And barren silence
Falls down and o'er.
My guardian spirit
No longer sings;
His harp has broken
Its silver strings.

“PSYCHE LOVES ME.”

I have no gold, no lands, no robes of splendor,
No crowd of sycophants to siege my door;
But fortune in one thing at least is tender—
For Psyche loves me! Could I ask for more?

I have no fame, nor to the height of honor
Will my poor name on tireless pinions soar;
Yet Fate has never drawn my hate upon her—
For Psyche loves me! Could I ask for more?

I have no station, know no high position,
And never yet the robes of office wore;
Yet I can well afford to scorn ambition—
For Psyche loves me! Could I ask for more?

I have no beauty—beauty has forsworn me,
On others wasting all her charming store;

564

Yet I lack nothing now which could adorn me—
For Psyche loves me! Could I ask for more?

I have no learning—in nor school nor college
Could I abide o'er quaint old tomes to pore;
But this I know, which passeth all your knowledge—
That Psyche loves me! Could I ask for more?

Now come what may, or loss or shame or sorrow,
Sickness, ingratitude, or treachery sore,
I laugh to-day and heed not for the morrow—
For Psyche loves me—and I ask no more.

PALINGENESIA.

A lock of sunlight hair
In this old volume, and it seems as soft
And silken as when first I placed it there—
Tress gazed at fond and oft.

Upon the embers—thus!
The flame devours the thing before my eyes;
So ends the past. What phantom vaporous
Do I see slowly rise?

It sits in yonder chair—
The graceful figure in the kirtle blue,
The eyes of tempered steel, the golden hair,
That once so well I knew.

Has she arisen then,
Spurning her cerements, from her narrow bed,
With all her arts to be admired of men—
Is not the sorceress dead?

565

And with her rises now
The spirit-pangs and madness of my youth,
The throbbing heart, stirred soul, and aching brow,
And doubt of woman's truth.

Smile not as once you smiled;
Put off the beauty that in death was drowned;
Beguile me not as one time you beguiled,
Ere I your falsehood found.

Go! get you to your tomb!
Lie down amid your fellows' mouldering bones—
Your beauty born again fills me with gloom:
Silence those siren tones!

The figure fades in air;
Dies on my ear a sweet, remorseful moan;
Before me I behold an empty chair—
I am once more alone.

TWO DAYS.

I. YESTERDAY.

Her skin is white as cold moonlight,
The lids her blue eyes cover;
And beats her heart with throb and start,
With a tremulous thrill as a maiden's will,
Before her own true lover.
She cannot speak, but on her cheek
The tear-drop downward starting,
Too well reveals how much she feels,
In that sad hour of parting.

566

Her skin is white as cold moonlight,
The lids her blue eyes cover;
Her arms are wound his neck around,
With languid sighs she reads his eyes,
The fond eyes of her lover.
Look thou elsewhere. This mournful pair,
Who show for love such fitness,
Should have no spies with soulless eyes,
But heaven alone for witness.

II. TO-MORROW.

Her skin is white as cold moonlight,
The lids her blue eyes cover;
No more her heart will throb and start
With a natural start devoid of art,
When meeting her true lover.
She cannot speak, nor on her cheek
Henceforth will tear-drops glisten;
Nor ever again, to wooing strain
Her willing spirit listen.

Shade skin so white, hide hair so bright,
Those blue eyes gently cover—
Shield her ever from earth's alarms;
Enshroud her charms and cross her arms,
Then sprinkle blossoms over,
Nail down the lid—the guests are bid
To see these nuptials sombre;
And gently take, lest she awake,
My darling to her slumber.

567

GOOD-NIGHT.

My dear, good-night! the moon is down,
The stars have brighter grown above,
There's quiet in the dusky town,
And all things slumber, save my love.
Good-night! good-night! and in thy dreams
Go wander in a pleasant clime,
By greenest meadows, singing streams,
And seasons all one summer time—
Good-night, my dear, good-night!

My love, good-night! let slumber steep
In poppy-juice those melting eyes,
Till morn shall wake thee from thy sleep,
And bid my spirit's dawn arise.
Good-night! good-night! and as to rest
Upon thy couch thou liest down,
One throb for me pervade thy breast,
And then let sleep thy senses drown.
Good-night, my love—good-night!

HER SINGING.

Afar I stand and listen
To hear my darling sing;
With every note that thrills her throat
Her eyes of violet glisten—
Pretty thing!

The breeze, with will capricious,
Blows fitful through the trees,

568

It drives away the ditty gay,
Whose notes were so delicious—
Wicked breeze!

To still the maiden's singing,
It acts a fruitless part;
I hear no words; but, like a bird's,
The notes she makes are ringing
Through my heart!

THE KING'S VISIT.

“A Pordenone si fa festa; a Napoli si muorte; Vado Napoli.”—
Reply of the King.

King Humbert in his palace sat secure,
When came two messages: the first one said
The cholera at Naples slew the poor,
For rich and noble from the place had fled.

The second came from Pordenone, where
They had the races and festivity—
Something to drive away a sovereign's care—
And so they begged the King their guest might be.

Quick through the electric wire the monarch spake—
Moved in his spirit by the city's woe:
“At Pordenone merriment they make;
They die at Naples; I to Naples go.”

Through stricken Naples soon a whisper spread
That, shaped to language, leapt from tongue to ear—
“Not left alone with misery and our dead;
One heart has sympathy—the King is here!”

569

The helpless widow with her babe at breast,
Mourning her husband lost, took heart again,
And said—“God in the end will stay the pest;
The King has come who loves his fellowmen.”

The loathsome beggar in his rags arrayed,
Waiting his hour to feel disease and die,
Plucked heart of grace, and thankful utterance made—
“Afar our nobles; but the King is nigh.”

In hut and hovel, in the noisome lanes
Where pestilence its shafts malignant sped,
The sick a moment terrors lost and pains—
“The King will come!” each to the other said.

And turning on their pallets when they heard
The King was there, within each sore-racked frame
A thrill of gratitude the spirit stirred,
And prayers ascended coupled with his name.

He came, with gracious mien and kindly tread,
Made all alike the object of his care;
He cheered the living, and he mourned the dead,
And hope inspired where all had been despair.

And when his voice's sympathetic tone
Fell musical upon the people's ears,
In joy to some his face transfigured shone,
In some a deeper feeling loosened tears.

On rich men who had left the poor to die,
On nobles who their order had disgraced,
Fell sudden shame; taught by example high,
Their new-born kindness cold neglect replaced.

It was not much, perhaps; a little thing,
With more of courage than a battle needs;

570

But it conferred upon the kindly King
More fame than could a thousand martial deeds.

And when in future ages men shall write
Of those few monarchs whom “Beloved” they call,
If more or less be there in letters bright,
Be sure King Humbert's name shall lead them all.

What man makes is but ill made at the best;
What God makes lacks no jot of perfect plan;
Man's will, a claim of birth-right, and the rest,
Here made a sovereign; God had made the man.

HIS IDEAL.

He has waited so long—for a thousand of years,
If we count by the heartbeats—to see her,
His soul big with hope and his eyes filled with tears,
And though he was bound by the fetters of fears,
He never had yearned to be freer.

He remembers her well as she came to his mind,
In her young maiden beauty and glory;
Her blush and her smile and her sympathy kind,
To his merits keen-sighted, to weaknesses blind,
And listening well pleased to his story.

He said she would come—how hope genders a lie,
And deceives itself thus—and caress him!
Some day in the May of the sweet by and by,
When youth rose to manhood and passion ran high,
To yield to his wooing and bless him.

571

Years passed, seasons followed each other, and time
Dropped its snows on the head growing older;
She came not for prose and she came not for rhyme,
She came not in age as she came not at prime;
In the flesh he may never behold her.

Ah! delicate creature, with tresses of gold,
So supreme in her grace and her beauty,
He longs in his arms her lithe form to enfold,
He longs her bright raiment to truly behold,
Perfection from head-dress to shoe-tie.

But still she eludes him. Another, perchance,
Has won one he thought his own only;
And there he remains, half in waking, half trance,
Shivering over the embers of dying romance,
A bachelor, withered and lonely.

MY SHIP AT SEA.

I waited long with wistful sighing
For that good ship afar at sea
With sails all set and ensign flying,
And laden deep with wealth for me.
And oft amid my weary labor
And fading hopes and prospects drear,
I said to kinsman, friend, or neighbor—
“Ah! would my ship were only here!”

With courage that the present seizes,
And makes its confidence a fort,
I waited till the favoring breezes
Should bring my vessel into port.

572

I knew the ship was merely drifting
Upon some current, distant far,
Where winds uncertain are and shifting,
As winds upon the ocean are.

It came at last, and richly freighted;
It brought the treasure of my life—
'Twas not in vain so long I waited—
It brought my young and gentle wife.
Then life was filled with placid pleasure
I had not dreamed on earth could be—
Ah! noble barque, that brought such treasure
From lands before unknown to me.

Again my ship to sea went sailing,
While I stood waiting on the shore,
Where clouds were black and winds were wailing,
And breakers stunned me with their roar;
The clouds dispersed; the storm subsiding
Fell to a gentle breeze and free;
The trusty vessel homeward gliding
Brought home a darling boy to me.

Long time my ship was idle lying
At anchor in the harbor here;
Nor sails were set, nor ensign flying,
And so it lay for many a year,
No farther far-off venture making,
But rocking on the sluggish tide,
While I, my quiet comfort taking,
Saw happy years before me glide.

Once more, without my wish or order,
The time-worn vessel sailed again

573

Past yon breakwater's green-edged border,
Out to the dark and misty main.
The treasures it had carried to me
It carried back one evil day;
And to a distant land and gloomy
It bore my wife and son away.

Since then with signal light a-burning,
I sit here at the window pane,
And anxious look for their returning;
But look and watch and wait in vain.
The ship will come with steady motion,
And Death will guide her to the shore,
To bear me o'er the boundless ocean,
Hither returning nevermore.

NOMANSLAND.

I have been out to Nomansland,
Which lies beyond the sea,
From whence some day will come a ship
To bring rare things to me.

And whom did you meet in Nomansland?
I met King Arthur there,
The nut-brown maid and Scheherezade,
And Bess with golden hair.

How did they treat you in Nomansland?
They scarcely opened their eyes;
But Robinson Crusoe stared awhile,
In a very faint surprise.

574

And what do they do in Nomansland?
They do not even play,
But lie and dream the whole night long.
And sit and dream all day.

Do they ever die in Nomansland?
Alive they always stay,
And there they will remain until
Shall dawn the Judgment Day.

A lovely place is Nomansland;
The skies are always clear,
The hills are blue, the valleys green,
And spring-time all the year.

They do not eat in Nomansland;
They drink no water there;
They feed on fancy all the time—
No banquet half so rare.

O carry me back to Nomansland,
Which lies beyond the sea;
There, with the bards and knights of old,
Forever let me be.

575

ROBIN AND ROBIN.

O robin, you sit on your perch and sing,
Or the water about from the dish you fling,
Or scatter the berries, you frolicsome thing,
And the saucer turn tilting over.
O robin, you darling, I love you much;
But there is another whose slightest touch
And faintest whisper my heart can thrill,
And whose eyes can flutter me at his will,
And, robin, that's Robin my lover.

Your cage is gilded and builded fine;
There strength and an airy grace combine;
But 'tis not so rare as the cage of mine
Which Robin is building to hold me.
And soon I shall sit with a folded wing,
And my very soul to its depths will sing;
And though it may rain, or though it may snow,
What shall I care if it do, or no,
While his loving arms enfold me?

Of all the birds on the tree or in nest
The robin's the one that I love the best,
With his homely plumage and ochrey breast;
But Robin my lover was dearer.
When he told of his love to my thirsty ear,
With only the listening angels near,
And his soul sought mine with a long, long kiss,
And my heart beat quick in my speechless bliss,
And heaven somehow seemed nearer.

The lush grass grows of an emerald hue,
The river is tinged with a beautiful blue,

576

And the sunbeams print with a rainbow tint
The sky that is spreading above me;
The rivulet laughs as it onward trips,
The diamonds flash where the water drips;
And never a storm and never a cloud
May sweep the vale, or the sky enshroud,
While Robin is here to love me.

O Robin, my Robin, your steps I hear,
With a silvery sound they are drawing near,
And the music they make to my ravished ear
The portal of joy uncloses.
I long for your glances my life to bless;
I yearn for your tender and fond caress—
Oh, the very ground that your footsteps press
Is covered with lilies and roses!

THE LOCK OF HAIR.

Within my lonely chamber
I sit at daylight's close,
Beneath the stream of radiance
The shaded gaslight throws,
A heap of half-worn letters
Upon the table spread—
Less tokens they than fetters
To bind me to the dead.
And one by one I burn them,
For they revive again
The thoughts of early manhood
At threescore years and ten.
Burnt offerings to oblivion
I make without a tear;

577

In flame and smoke they vanish—
But stay! what have we here?
An ebon casket olden;
I open it with care
To find a wavy ringlet
Of soft and silvery hair.

Ah! long time hidden relic!
This silken lock was hers;
And to its deeps my spirit
With tender feeling stirs,
Back to the days of childhood
My mind returns and brings
A bright and vivid picture
Of long-forgotten things.
I hear the tone of music,
All hearts around that won;
I see the loving glances
That fell upon her son;
I feel the sweet caresses
That gave my heart such joy,
When that dear hair was auburn,
And I was but a boy;
I feel the yearning tender
That followed me for years,
The blessing when we parted
She gave me through her tears.

The fond beliefs of childhood,
The earnest faith in dreams,
The nymphs that haunt the wildwood,
The nixes of the streams,
The fairies of the meadows,
The witches lean and grey—

578

Mere unsubstantial shadows—
All these may pass away,
But though the baseless fancies
Of early days depart,
And with them the romances
That thrilled the childish heart;
Though time, with iron fingers,
All else may check or chill,
One master feeling lingers
Within the bosom still—
Nor age, nor death can smother
That purest love and best
The true man bears the mother
Who nursed him at her breast.

WANTED.

“Wanted—As porter in a store, an honest, steady man, who knows his duty, and will do it. Apply,” etc.—

Advertisement in Daily Paper.

Why, after all, a common want;
'Tis felt in every place and station,
In every corner of the land,
In this—I fear in every nation.
'Twas in the journal yesterday—
I call your close attention to it—
“Wanted, an honest, steady man,
Who knows his duty, and will do it.”

When lawyers lend themselves to fraud,
And give their brains for highest hiring;
When judges buy and sell the law,
Truckling to mobs, with knaves conspiring—

579

Dikè exclaims, her altar stained,
As she, and good men round her, view it—
“Wanted, an honest, steady man,
Who knows his duty, and will do it.”

When learned physicians soil their art
By fawning ways and cozening speeches,
By secret shares in nostrums vile,
By stabbing at their brother leeches—
At conduct base and mean as this,
Aisklepios cries, as they pursue it—
“Wanted, an honest, steady man,
Who knows his duty, and will do it.”

When certain clergymen are found
To wink at sins of rich church-members;
To smother out the Christian fire,
Rather than blow to flame the embers,
St. Peter shakes his keys, and says—
I can't with half his scorn imbue it—
“Wanted, an honest, steady man,
Who knows his duty, and will do it.”

When in all parties fellows rule
Whose place it is to serve in prison;
When all the veriest scum of earth
Upon the surface has arisen;
When politics has grown a trade,
And ruffians base alone pursue it—
“Wanted, an honest, steady man,
Who knows his duty, and will do it.”

When honest purpose surely fails;
When honor meets with sneers and jeering;

580

When fanes to gold as God are built;
When patient merit has no hearing;
When sense of right is buried deep,
Since fraud and wrong and avarice slew it—
“Wanted, an honest, steady man,
Who knows his duty, and will do it.”

Oh! for a leader of the mass
Which fain would bear these things no longer!
Oh! for a hand to rend the chain
That every moment grows the stronger!
We die beneath the upas tree—
Is there no axe at hand to hew it?—
“Wanted, an honest, steady man,
Who knows his duty, and will do it.”

CROSSING THE RIVER.

Murmurs the soldier in dying,
As the death-pang the tired spirit frees,
“Let us all cross over the river,
And rest in the shade of the trees.”

Ah! could we cross o'er that river,
And rest in the shadows, and then,
Refreshed by repose and grown stronger,
Come back to our struggle again!

Over that free-flowing river,
Beyond where its dark waters roar,
Are the trees of the balsam or upas,
That grow on its farthermost shore?

581

What is the destiny waiting
Thither side of that shadowy deep—
Sweet ease and repose for the spirit,
Or the gloom of eternal sleep?

None who have passed that river,
And rested beneath the trees,
Have ever come back to tell us
If the shadows brought slumber or ease.

Nevertheless and forever
Across the deep river they go,
The basest and purest together—
Together the high and the low.

There in their rags go the beggars,
And there in their robes go the rich;
The few who expire in the palace,
And the many who die in the ditch;

Those who have graven their story
On high in the temple of Fame,
And those who have lived without glory,
And left us not even a name;

Those whom we loved for their goodness,
And those whom we hated for crime,
All passing from life's dreary struggle,
Out of light, out of mind, out of time;

Plunging in mist and in darkness,
Where doubting with terror agrees,
They cross the mysterious river,
And seek for the shade of the trees.

582

“KEEP A STIFF UPPER LIP.”

You ventured your wealth without counting the cost,
And, tempted by avarice, risked it, and lost;
And now, in chagrin that the blow has been struck,
You rail at misfortune and prattle of luck,
Nor recall, as you sit there dull, nerveless, and sad,
'Twas possibly judgment, not luck, that was bad.
Lie the fault where it may: give your troubles the slip;
Keep courage, keep heart, “keep a stiff upper lip.”

All hope for the future you tell me has fled
Since the maiden you loved to another is wed;
Your heart to its depths with her glances she stirred;
She was fair, she was false, she has broken her word;
She has left you the wretchedest man among men,
And your frame cannot thrill with affection again.
Take a full draught of love; that was only a sip;
Find another more true, “keep a stiff upper lip.”

The serpent called Slander no kindness can tame;
It gnaws at your honor and slimes o'er your name;
Why moan over that? You're in no wise the first
Whose deeds were distorted, whose motives aspersed.
They must all bear the cross who aspire to the crown;
Let calumny go—live it down, live it down!
Walk straight in your pathway, though others may trip—
Untruth slays itself—“keep a stiff upper lip.”

In the fever called typhus the skilfullest leech,
Whom signs that are trifles to others can teach,
Notes the lip of his patient far more than the eye—
If the upper one droop, all is over; he'll die.

583

When the muscles relax that were active before,
No skill then can save him—the struggle is o'er;
Life's voyage is ended, and foundered the ship;
To recover he must “keep a stiff upper lip.”

'Tis a well-worn expression—I grant that, of course;
But it bristles with point; it has meaning and force;
'Tis the keynote of triumph: who goes to a fight
With downcast demeanor imperils his right;
Who would win must have courage, and show it beside,
With a confident manner that borders on pride;
Where once he has grasped must not loosen his grip,
And, whatever confront, “keep a stiff upper lip.”

“DON'T LOOK FOR THE BRIDGE TILL YOU COME TO THE STREAM.”

Why anticipate possible trouble to-day
For a morrow whose dawn has not risen before you?
Why darken the sunlight that falls in your way
By the cloud of a sorrow which has not come o'er you?
Let the quaint, homely saying but enter your mind,
(In the backwoods they hold it in highest esteem),
And good common sense in its teaching you'll find—
Don't look for the bridge till you come to the stream.

Our life is a journey; the road may be rough:
Ruts, boulders and quicksands the pathway may cumber;
We shall find all these obstacles quickly enough,
And a map made by gloom will not lessen their number.

584

The trouble we fight with before it appears,
At the time of its coming much harder will seem;
And the eyes worn with watching fill quickly with tears—
Don't look for the bridge till you come to the stream.

With gratitude deep for what good you enjoy,
All needless anxiety speedily bury;
When foreboding of crosses appears to annoy,
Fling it off as a burthen, eat, drink, and be merry.
Attend to your duty; be cheerful and strong;
Where sunshine is brightest, there bask in its beam;
Keep your courage alive for your battle with wrong—
Don't look for the bridge till you come to the stream.

You may say 'tis your forethought that darkens the air;
That your brain bids you look for the ills of to-morrow;
To provide for your needs shows your prudence and care,
But wait till its need to provide for your sorrow.
Look out, if you will, but look out for the best;
Who knows but the future with triumph may teem?
Meet what comes when it comes; leave to Heaven the rest—
Don't look for the bridge till you come to the stream.

Who broods over trouble before it is here,
Finds endurance to bear it grow less with the brooding;
To magnify danger will magnify fear,
And doubt is a dastard wherever intruding.
Content with the joy that the present inspires,
No more on the wo that may come to you dream;
Meet Fate, when it strikes, with the force it requires—
Don't look for the bridge till you come to the stream.

585

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

No drum-beat rolls
In dismal cadence, as they sadly bear
To his last rest the king who reigned o'er souls;
No pageant there
Such as men see when sceptred princes die;
No funeral of state; but, moving slow,
All heads uncovered as the dead goes by,
Mute, awe-struck, sorrowing, the mourners go
Through the hushed streets. In that more praise behold
Than in the laurel crown and harp of gold.

Honor and age!
Death takes his harvest of the ripened sheaves,
But takes not all; whatever be his rage,
Three things he leaves:
A memory that shall live for countless years,
And greener grow as lengthens out the time;
The sorrow of good men, too deep for tears
That rise from shallow fountains; flowing rhyme,
Part of our language, to be said or sung
Wherever wanders forth our native tongue.

Death keeps no clutch
On one whose lyre rang loud when those around
Essayed the strings with imitative touch
And faintest sound.
The man may die, the poet still survives;
Lives in his verse his soul forevermore,
For works, not years, are measures of men's lives.
The years he had may be fourscore and four,

586

And yet the poet's age eternal be—
All time can co-exist with such as he.

So let him rest;
Give him a quiet grave in some lone spot.
He needs no shaft of sombre granite, lest
He be forgot.
His mob is builded high and founded deep;
His epitaph is in the verse he gave
For all men's comfort. Let none living weep
For one who steps to glory from the grave;
But rather joy that at fourscore and four,
The poet dies to live forevermore.

WRECKED.

Beauty in meter,
Not a song sweeter in movement than she,
Moving sedately,
Every step stately and graceful and free,
Form lithe and slender,
Heart warm and tender—
Fearful her fate to be wrecked here with me.

Born far above me,
Stooping to love me so fondly and well,
Piteous that for her
Loomed the black horror of final farewell,
Which on the fleeting
Joy of our meeting
Fell in its darkness to slay as it fell.

Gay at the wassail
Sat in the castle each baron and knight;
At the words spoken

587

Revel was broken, alarm was at height;
Torches were flashing,
Hoofs wildly dashing
Over the drawbridge and out from the light.

Horsemen pursuing
For our undoing rode fiercely and fast,
Following after
Till with loud laughter, delirious, aghast,
At their vain gallop,
In a frail shallop,
Fled we on linen wings out in the blast—

Hither and thither,
Knowing not whither our vessel might sail;
Here a plank started,
There a mast parted as the shrouds fail;
Sails rent and riven,
Drearily driven,
Helmless and aimless and dazed in the gale.

White foam before us,
Lightning flashed o'er us its terrible glare;
Through the sea surging,
Swift currents urging—urging from where?
Terror around us,
Chaos to bound us,
With us rode danger and woe and despair.

By the wave landed,
On this rock stranded past succor are we;
Hope has forsaken,
Doom overtaken my darling and me;
Yet is no sorrow
That on the morrow,
Clasped heart to heart, we shall float on the sea.

588

A HEART-BURST.

Fill me no cup of Xeres wine to her my heart holds dear;
If you insist to pledge with me, then drop a single tear.
For she I love is far away, and months must pass before
Her heart shall leap to hear again my foot-tramp at the door;
And thus apart, my weary heart, torn both with hopes and fears,
Gives to my spirit wretchedness, and to my eyelids tears.

You laugh and quaff your Xeres wine, around the festive board,
And jest with names of those who love, which secret you should hoard;
But I conceal how much I feel, for words could not express
The sorrow weeping in my heart, the abject wretchedness,
Illumined by a single hope—which may be all in vain!—
That foes will cease to part our hearts, and we will meet again.

THE EARL'S DAUGHTER.

I would not care to see thee—thou
Art changed, they tell me—so am I;
More bronzed my visage, somewhat tamed
The spirit once so high.
And if of beauty, less
Than once thou hadst, thou hast,
Let me alone behold
Thy features in the past—
Be as I saw thee last.

589

For as within that past they were,
Thy charms by memory here are limned—
The tremulous nostril, rounded chin,
Bright eye that never dimmed,
And snooded, waving hair
Which ripple-marked a shore
Whose beach was ivory—
Unhappy me forlore,
My barque rides there no more!

What time we walked by Avon's side,
Our spirits twain combined in one,
And dreamed of lands with Spring eterne,
And never setting sun—
This is no longer ours;
I wander to and fro,
Dejected, blind, and shorn;
The sunlight will not glow;
Hope ever answers—“No!”

For I am poor. Within that word
How many grievous faults there lay;
Such has been since old Babylon,
And such shall be for aye.
Yet not thy acres broad,
Thy vassals nor thy gold,
Me in such strong control,
Had ever power to hold
As thy charms manifold.

Thou art the daughter of an earl,
Whose ancestor, at Azincourt,
Fell, fighting by his monarch's side,
When mine was but a boor.

590

Since then a host of lords,
And dames of high degree,
Gave lustre to thy line,
Till birth and dignity
Rose to their height in thee.

Yet azure-blooded as thou art,
Whilst I am come of lowlier race,
I did not once thy lineage
Within thy beauty trace.
I scanned no pedigree,
Thy loveliness to prize;
I read no Domesday-Book,
In love to make me wise;
High rank fanned not my sighs.

But thou, whilst sitting in the shade
Of thine old, famous family-tree,
Will scarcely to thy mind recall
One, once so much to thee.
So high thy station now,
Thy vision's careless sweep
Falls not below, to strike
That vastly lower deep,
Wherein I ever creep.

Thou wert one time all tenderness,
With passion glowing like a spark—
Sole ember in those ashes grey—
Which flashed, and all grew dark.
The coolness of thy pride
Forbade to rise to fire,
What should have been a flame,
And swelled and mounted higher;—
But I did not expire.

591

I lived—I live, if that be life,
To drag these weary moments thus,
Doomed to a lack of loving, when
Of love most covetous.
I am that which I was,
But thou art different grown,
Chilled, petrified by rank,
Thyself a thing of stone,
Emotionless, alone.

They wonder at thy scorn of men,
The trembling vassals of thy nod,
They see not as thy pinions sweep,
Where once thy footsteps trod.
And thou midst flattering peers,
May well, perhaps, forget
How dearer once I was
Than all the jewels set
Thick on thy coronet.

But I remember—'tis to me
Fixed as a Median edict; would
The past might verily pass, and I
Forget thee as I should.
Still for thy love I yearn,
Although 'tis not for me;
As well the pond expect
To mingle with the sea,
As I to mate with thee.

These are my final words to thee—
Years part me from the timid first—
They gushed when came this flood of tears,
Or else this heart had burst.

592

These uttered, none shall know
Save Him, who knows all things,
How driven to my heart
On barbed arrow's wings,
This hopeless passion stings.

“HE SHOULD HAVE SPOKEN.”

When roses bloomed in leafy June,
And bluebirds trilled their liveliest tune,
When genial glowed the sun at noon,
And all was pleasant weather,
Through greenwood where the beeches flung
Their shadows ferns and flowers among,
Sweet Bonnibel, the fair and young,
And I, walked out together.

Along the river's heights we strayed,
Till, tired at length, the little maid
Took seat beneath an oak-tree's shade,
The branches bending o'er her;
While I, who felt my heart that day
To fears far more than hopes a prey,
Threw down myself in careless way
Upon the ground before her.

I knew not if my love she shared;
I knew not if for me she cared;
I would have told her, had I dared,
How deep was my devotion;

593

But felt my courage sadly fail;
So strove to woo her by a tale
Wherein the words would scarcely vail
My passionate emotion.

There, as she sat inclined to hear,
Her head on hand, in accents clear,
I told the tale of Aldovere
Out of the old romances:
How he, a peasant lowly-born,
Loved the proud Isabel of Lorne,
But showed it not for fear of scorn,
Save in his sighs and glances—

How spite of low estate he rose,
Won lands and rank by knightly blows,
Still hiding well the mental throes
That ever racked and thrilled him;
And never to the lady told
(Awed by her graces manifold)
The feeling that his life controlled,
The ardent love that filled him—

And thus he passed his life away,
A noble with a far-wide sway,
And even when flesh had turned to clay,
His silence kept unbroken;
Ere they bore him to his rest,
By king and vassals mourned and blest,
They found her picture on his breast,
Of love a life-long token.

Up rose my Bonnibel. Said she:
“The man was weak, it seems to me;
He should have spoken frank and free,
And not his love dissembled.”

594

“And may I speak?” I eager said;
At which my darling drooped her head,
Her face and neck grew rosy red,
And every fibre trembled.

Ah! forty years have passed away,
And she and I are old and grey;
But memory of that summer day
Still to my heart is clinging;
Again I see the earth and sky,
The quiet river moving by,
And hear, among the branches high,
The bluebirds tuneful singing.

THE CITY IN THE CLOUDS.

A wondrous city stands in yonder skies,
Where domes and minarets and spires arise;
Whose walls of opal fierily enfold
Its palaces, with roofs of burnished gold;
Surrounded by the fairest gardens, where
Eternal-blooming roses scent the air;
Where lilies pure and stainless asphodels
Shake ravishing sweetness from their waxen bells,
Within a space where neutral-tinted mist,
Wedded to sunlight, warms to amethyst—
A city marvellous, supremely grand,
By Fancy builded in that airy land.

What beings in that bright confine are found?
What creatures dwell in such enchanted ground?
Who are the happy they whose tireless feet
At will may wander through each pearlen street?

595

What nobles those in velvet triple-piled,
Their robes white samite, pure and undefiled,
Who ride with courtly grace and lordly mien
Through spacious highways, laced with living green,
Each on his steed, caparisoned superb,
Controlled by silken rein and golden curb?
Who be the guests that pass their happy hours
Within the shelter of those silvern towers?
What white-haired peers, what knights of high degree—
High from their birth or through their chivalry?
What lovely dames, of manner debonair,
Smile pleasantly on rapt adorers there?

No beings of a mortal essence those
Who in the place find pleasure or repose.
Perceptibly the noblest forms they wear,
But, nevertheless, intangible as air.
They are the eager hopes of early years;
Each baffled purpose which dissolved in tears;
The many high-aimed aspirations which
Made dreamy beings for the moment rich;
The ardent love and exquisite tenderness
That, born in youth, died of their own excess;
The labor with an object spent in vain;
Intensest pleasure self-transformed to pain;
The projects fair, devised for others' good,
By those we would have served misunderstood;
The chance for fame, obtained at heavy cost,
But grasped not at the moment, therefore lost;
Each fleeting notion, each delusive thought
By restless minds from frail material wrought—
All these, as things too airy for our day,
Passed one time thither by a golden way;
And where that city in the cloudland stands,
In dwellings builded not by fleshly hands,

596

In palpable forms they move or take their ease,
Themselves unfathomable mysteries.

O city which no mortal man may win,
Seen only by such eyes as gaze within,
It matters not what name they give to thee—
Romance, or Revery, or Poetry.
What were this dull and tiresome life of ours,
Did not thy cloud-embattlemented towers,
Whose glory mortal pencil may not paint,
Rise for our comfort when our souls grow faint?
And, while thy airy outlines fill our skies,
And all thy beauties feed our inner eyes,
The sweet nepenthe which the mind distills
Blunts sharpest griefs and drowns the fiercest ills;
And utter rapture shape and sense enshrouds
While gazing on that City in the Clouds.

PHILIP KEARNY.

Though they summon forth the people
By the bells in spire and steeple—
Though their guardsmen proudly come,
Timing tread to beat of drum—
Though in sunlight flashes steel,
And the brazen cannon peal—
Though are uttered in his praise
Sounding words and polished phrase—
Though his form in bronze they bare
To the sunlight and the air—
Fitter is the tribute when
Some one of his former men,
Dwelling on the hero's fame,

597

Slow and reverent breathes his name—
Kearny! At the well-known word
All around are thrilled and stirred:
Then, in silence absolute,
Voice through depth of feeling mute,
To the soul these tokens speak,
Flash in eye and flush on cheek,
Volumes of their loving pride
In the hero grand who died
On thy fatal field, Chantilly.

When with laurels we adorn him,
Dead, our hero, who shall mourn him?
Who for Kearny drops a tear
Let his footsteps come not here.
Tears are only shed for those
Who their lives ignobly close;
But for one who undismayed
Drew within a cause his blade,
And, at Honor's potent call,
Fell when duty bade him fall,
Loudly let your voices ring,
Garlands for his statue bring,
Keep his memory green for years;
But for him no tears—no tears!
So we honor Kearny now—
Kearny of the open brow,
Peer of Roland and the Cid
In the daring deeds he did;
Who the battle carried through
Single arm, but heart of two,
And, on that immortal day,
Like a meteor flashed his way
O'er thy bloody field, Chantilly.

598

For this soldier, cool and fearless,
In the storm of battle peerless,
Honor, loving such as he,
Shaped his glorious destiny,
Gave him in her beams to bask,
Gave him all that brave men ask,
Favors never ceased to pour
Till his cup of fame ran o'er,
Then, with nothing more to give,
Bade her favorite cease to live.
Though in mould the soldier sleep,
Earth may well his body keep:
Bury his faults there too; on those
Let the ground forever close;
But his nobler qualities,
Death has naught to do with these.
Heart attuned to any fate,
Should it come through love or hate;
Soul disdaining all things mean;
Sense of honor sharp and keen,
Lofty spirit, courage high—
These at least could never die
On thy storied field, Chantilly.

THE TELEGRAPH WIRES.

Through the wide window, from my easy chair,
I see the telegraph wires beyond the trees,
Like spider-threads suspended in the air,
Played on at will by every passing breeze;
Sounding to quickening ears their cadenced song,
Now faint and tremulous, now bold and strong.

599

Wind-smitten, strange the secret tales they tell,
Harp-strings of iron, resounding day and night;
Their music rises in harmonious swell,
Or sinks in ecstasy of deep delight;
And I who listen to them here to-day,
Know well what songs they sing, what words they say.

When battles raged, along these wires there rang
The victors' cheers, the victims' wild despair;
The crash of musketry, the sabres' clang,
The boom of cannon, pulsed themselves in air;
But these have gone, and in these peaceful days,
Their melodies befit our duller ways.

Listen! strange tune for an electric harp,
Which voices there in tame, monotonous tones—
“Come down to dinner, Joe, at seven sharp;
You'll meet with Spenser, Livingston and Jones.”
So—“fools make feasts, and wise men eat them.” Well,
Many find music in a dinner-bell.

Here comes a purer song, a longing strain
To carry comfort to a weary heart,
And calm remorse, and soothe the aching brain—
“Come back, my son, and nevermore depart.
Stretch not your mother's heart-strings on the rack;
All is forgiven now—come back! come back!”

A jubilant melody dances on the strings,
Light, gay and lively, though the air be brief;
Were 't in the sender's power, the lightning wings
Would move much faster. Of all men the chief,
Hear him proclaim it: “Brothers, give us joy;
Mother and child are doing well—a boy!”

600

Our life to-day begins, to-morrow ends:
Here is a plaintive strain in minor key;
A wailing dirge the cabined lightning sends,
Mourning a spirit from its fetters free—
“Our father died to-day at eighty-five”—
Died! 'twas his clay; the soul is yet alive.

And now, not music, but discordant notes
That shake at first with mirth, then thrill with pain;
Exultant laughter, mixed with mothers' moans,
And wails of children, starved through greed of gain—
“Hold on to every grain; wheat jumped to-day;
To-morrow brings a famine price—hurray!”

And as to many tunes their songs are sung,
With varying words that change from sad to gay,
Never remaining mute, nor one unstrung,
The electric harp-strings musically play;
And joy and grief and pain and vulgar thought
To audible music by the winds are wrought.

Harp-strings of iron, whose notes the bearer thrill,
Track of the lightning-courier's constant flight,
Obedient servant of the human will,
Sound your weird melodies by day and night.
You feel not, hear not, as the wild notes ring,
The words you utter, nor the songs you sing.

601

THE NEIGHBORS.

Beside the deep, green river,
Here in the lower lands,
My house, low-roofed and humble,
In modest quiet stands.
A moss-grown, rude log cabin,
Close by a brawling rill;
A rood of ground around it—
I have no time to till.

Across the deep, green river,
Whose waters flow so free,
A proud and stately mansion
Begirt with trees I see;
And through the leafy branches,
At day's departing rays,
Catching the crimson sunlight,
Its many windows blaze.

The owner of that palace
Boasts of his lineage high;
My father was a woodman,
A woodman, too, am I.
I earn by constant labor
My plain and scanty fare;
My neighbor over yonder
Is called a millionaire.

When toil at night is over,
Tired with the axe's stroke,
I sit here at the doorstep,
My corn-cob pipe to smoke,

602

I watch him slowly pacing
Before his house of pride,
Beneath the clustering vine-leaves
On yon veranda wide.

At times, this side the river,
He canters slowly by;
Absorbed in thought, he never
Upon me casts an eye.
He is not old, but wrinkles
His pallid features seam;
He looks as though existence
Were but a troubled dream.

If he, with gold and acres,
Could have my rugged health,
Or I, with happy slumbers,
Had only half his wealth,
Then life were better balanced
For both of us to-day,
And each, perhaps, more cheerly
Would travel on his way.

But, as it is, no envy
Within my breast can be:
With all his state and riches,
'Tis his to envy me.
Pale face and care-worn spirit,
Eyes sunken, shrunken limbs—
With these to burden riches.
What man would share with him?

Deep green is yonder river,
Its waters faintly gleam:

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For us in time fast coming
There is another stream.
We both will lose our burdens,
My toiling and his dross;
When over the mystic river
Our spirits freed shall cross.

“THE GAY YOUNG MAN FROM TOWN.”

With fork in hand, one summer day,
Making a feint of tossing hay,
The gay young man who came from town
Talked with a maiden small and brown,
With hazel eyes and chestnut hair,
And quiet way and modest air;
Nor did he seem to care or know
That her blush was quick and voice was low,
For merely to flirt with the maiden brown
Was the aim of the gay young man from town.

At nooning next the young man sat
Beneath an apple tree—sour at that—
And chatted with Susy (such her name)
About the city from whence he came,
Its long, wide avenues, buildings vast,
Its ease and luxury unsurpassed;
While she, with a bashful air and shy,
Drooped low each eyelid over its eye,
A deep flush reddening features brown
At words of the gay young man from town.

Some days he had spent in this rural spot,
Where health was plenty, and style was not;

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Had left his club and his friends behind
For life that was true and unconfined,
With study (the latest novel) worn,
With loss of his hunting-dog forlorn,
And because of a sad dispute he had
With his “governor”—thus he styled his dad.
All this he explained to the maiden brown,
With a sigh, this gay young man from town.

First days, then weeks, and where Susy went
The steps of the gay young man were bent,
And sentiment followed flirting then,
As chanced to many a man of men;
For he found his pulses quicken and stir,
Whenever he saw or thought of her,
And learned alone to dream and sigh,
Or stammer and blush when she was nigh;
The eyes and blush of the maiden brown
Had captured the gay young man from town.

So he told his love, and as he bent
In hope and fear to ask consent,
He told her the real reason why
He had cast his home and kinsfolk by.
His father had bade him settle in life,
And had chosen for him a proper wife,
“Who did not stand on her worth alone,
With a rich old father, and cash of her own,”
But he fled from her and his father's frown,
And found his fate afar from town.

The maiden listened well the while,
And over her features came a smile.
Her father, she told him, had a plan
To make her wife to a gay young man

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“Who did not stand on his worth alone,
With a rich old father and cash of his own;”
Reputed he was a handsome catch;
But she objected to such a match,
And, afraid to face her father's frown,
Had fled to her old nurse here from town.

He stared; she smiled. Around her waist
His arm in loving way he placed.
“In spite of will we must confess
The old folk triumph, nevertheless;
It seems we ran from love away,
And lived to love another day;
And, plighted, going back again,
Our sires will laugh at us—what then?
'Tis better far to laugh than frown”—
Were the words of the gay young man from town.

606

THE RESCUE OF SEVIER.

[_]

The name of John Sevier is held in honor to this day by the mountaineers of Eastern Tennessee, who insist that their favorite, and not Shelby, Campbell or Cleveland, was the hero of King's Mountain. The claim is too large; but there is no doubt that his skill, promptness and courage did much to aid in the victory over Ferguson and his loyalists. Sevier was a man of note. He was the leading spirit in the settlement of Eastern Tennessee; and after the State was organized became its first and most popular governor. The attempt to try him for treason against North Carolina, and especially the mode of his arrest, excited the indignation of the mountain hunters, and a thousand of them, arms in hand, spontaneously assembled, threatening fight. Had civil war been begun, whatever might have been its immediate result, the bad blood and the consequent feuds following it, would have retarded progress. One of Sevier's friends, James Cosby, aided by Evans, and the two Sevier boys, effected his rescue, or, as an old Holston settler said: “Snaked him outen the court.” His neighbors welcomed him back with acclamations, and stood ready to resist his re-capture. The trial was wisely dropped. Sevier was at once elected to the Senate of the State, and President Washington appointed him to the command of the district around him with the rank of Major-General. After that he led a campaign against the Cherokees, whom he signally chastised. He was elected governor for six successive terms, and his administration was marked by tact and firmness.

Ran the news along the Holston by each path and cattletrack,
How they kidnapped from his cabin, glorious Nolichucky Jack;
How with iron chains they fettered him who fought against the crown,
And the hero of King's Mountain bore away to Morgantown.

Came the men from every cabin on the bottom-land and hill,
With their trusty Deckard rifles, sure at forty rods to kill—
Sturdy hunters, true and ready, not a fibre thrilled with fear,
Swarming eager to the rescue of the gallant John Sevier.

Brave James Cosby—no one truer, none more stout of heart than Jim—
Was a leading man among them; Major Evans stood with him:

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And the two together counselled to avoid a civil war,
And its train of many evils, which all honest men abhor.

“Now the people have arisen,” spake out Cosby to his friend,
“Fierce their wrath in its beginning, what may be the bitter end?
Let us temper rage with cunning, the result may be the same,
And by peaceful method striving we shall reach our real aim.

“Let our leaguers all be ready, lest we chance to need their aid;
But if once Sevier be mounted on his swift and matchless jade,
Safely she to Nolichucky will our gallant chieftain bear—
Not a steed they have among them that can overtake the mare.”

In the court-house were the lawyers; on the bench the judge was seen;
Doors wide open, and the people packed the place with faces keen;
John Sevier sat by his counsel; when there came outside a din,
And the crowd in twain was parted as Jim Cosby hurried in.

Frowned the judge and stared the jury, as the bold intruder spake—
“Aren't you fellows through your fooling with the man, for goodness' sake?”
And he pointed o'er his shoulder to the street behind, where,
Ready saddled, ready bridled, stood the pawing, prancing mare.

608

John Sevier flung back his guardsmen, as the people's cheering rang;
Through the parting crowd he darted; on the blooded mare he sprang;
She was off! In vain the sheriff mounted quickly with his men;
For he never caught the bonny mare nor John Sevier again.

Galloped Jack to Nolichucky, over hillside, through the glen;
Not pursuers, but defenders, rode behind a thousand men,
Who had sworn the man who led them in the fight that made them free
Ne'er should captive, gyved and shackled, in the hands of foemen be.

Do not call those hunters rebels. Never people had more awe
Of the stern demand of justice, or more reverence for law;
But they meant no vile conspirators should wrest the law to wrong,
While from Holston hills and valleys friends of right could muster strong.

Well the love the people bore him was in after days repaid,
When he led them forth in triumph, beating back the Indian raid;
And to-day throughout that country in the cabins you shall hear
Blessings, when the name is uttered, on the memory of Sevier.

609

THE RAID ON RAMAPO.

Amid the ridges of Ramapo
The Garrabrant homestead stands,
And ever and ever it overlooks
The rolling and lower lands.
Though peaceful now, there was turmoil then,
And hurrying to and fro,
When Jack the Regular's men came there
A hundred years ago.

Jan Garrabrant owned the acres 'round,
And Jan had a pair of sons
Who were ready to wield the scythe or flail,
Or handle at need their guns.
They called them rebels, perchance they were,
Who hated the Tories much;
And the Tory leader swore the three
Should feel his royal clutch.

Rode hastily there Pete Huyler's girl,
And to Betty, the wife, she said:
“The Tories have ridden from Paulus Hoeck,
And Jack is at their head;
They are firing houses and slaying kine
In the country far and near!
They swear they'll burn the Garrabrants out,
And they're not three miles from here.”

Then she laid her whip on her horse's flank,
And was off with a leap and bound,
For her father had sent the maiden out
To rouse the country around;

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While Betty ran out to where she'd see
Jan and her sons in the corn,
And she blew a blast with right good will
On the battered dinner-horn.

Home in a hurry came sons and sire,
And when the tidings they heard,
Rip stabled the horses, Dick herded the kine,
And neither one uttered a word.
Jan loaded the guns—he had seven in all—
“We have three for defence!” said he;
“One more,” said Betty; “you'll not forget
To count in a fight on me.”

They barred the windows and bolted the doors,
And waited the coming foe,
Till they heard the clatter of iron hoofs
Afar in the valley below.
It nearer came, and suddenly stopped,
And the air around was still;
And they knew Jack's men had tethered each horse
And were climbing on foot the hill.

Then up came a scout to summon the house—
“We offer you quarter,” said he;
“So make no fight against order and law;
The king's loyal subjects are we.
He offers through us his mercy to show;
You'd better throw open the door,
For we're twenty-five, and you are but three.”
“Oh, no!” replied Betty; “we're four!”

Betty Garrabrant levelled her firelock and drew
A bead on the Tory's head;
The bullet leapt out with whistle and whirr,
And down dropped the partisan dead.

611

Cried Jack, when he saw it: “We'll have revenge!
Come, hurry there, some of you men!
Pile fagots and torch at the side of the house;
We'll burn the she-wolf in her den!”

They had better have stayed with the rest of the band,
For the three whom he sent were slain,
And Jack felt a ball bore a hole in his arm—
Said Betty: “'Twas meant for your brain!”
So the Tories drew back behind out-house and trees,
And fired without order or plan;
But when those in the house found a foeman exposed,
The bullet ne'er failed of its man.

They kept up the siege till the hour of four,
But they never the leaguered stirred;
Then suddenly in the distance far
A dull, low patter they heard.
'Twas the steady thud of galloping horse,
With the riders eager for fight;
And the Tories scattered, and backed their steeds,
And were off in a headlong flight.

But the farmers who came from house and field,
With firelocks ready and sure,
They followed the knaves till twilight fell
O'er valley and hill and moor.
Seven Tories were left on the Garrabrant farm,
And seventeen by the way;
And Jack the Regular rode alone
To the Hoeck from the bloody fray.

612

THE OFFICERS' CALL.

BALLAD OF THE UTE WAR, 1879.

They may talk of the tremulous music that steals o'er the water at night,
How the waltz thrills the frame of the dancers who float through a downpour of light,
Or the magical stir of the drum-beat that pulses the echoing feet,
More yet of the voice of a mother when crooning a lullaby sweet;
Ah! sweeter by far was the music I heard in the lone trumpet sound,
Sharply piercing the dawn of the morning while redskins were prowling around.

Destruction awaiting, we lay there, cooped up in that horrible place,
Undaunted and waiting whatever fate fortune might give us to face.
Narrow there was the bound of our fortress, our riflepit hastily made,
Nigh hopeless seemed pluck and endeavor, yet never a man was afraid.
Even though in a twenty-fold number their host dared not venture too near,
Nor charge or in darkness or sunlight, lest boldness might cost them too dear.

Grew gloomy at moments the outlook, though not from the force of the foe,
Less our rations were growing and hunger might force to a desperate blow.

613

If Merritt came not with his forces to aid us ere famine begun,
Starvation might weaken our bodies and thus would their triumph be won.
Hasting off to Fort Trumbull for succor, five days had our messenger gone,
Our food shrinking smaller and smaller—and so it wore steadily on.

Thus wearily watching and waiting, at bay we lay there in a ring,
The Utes swarming round us like hornets and now and then showing a sting.
Once they fired the dead grass there to windward and charged under cloak of the smoke,
But they hurriedly scurried to distance when our rifle mouths angrily spoke;
And they, having hope in their numbers, in groups past our bullets they lay,
As a panther in wait in the forest, secure in the end of his prey.

Though keenly they watched our encampment, they dared not risk life by attack—
Made feints now and then of assaulting, but kept from our sure rifles back;
But they held not their leaguer in quiet, harassing by day and by night,
And waylaid us when going for water—we won every drink through a fight.
Their thought was to worry and weary, our strength and our courage to drain;
Our thought was our messenger absent and if he were captive or slain.

614

We posted, the last day we lay there, a trumpeter early at dawn
To answer the signal of Merritt, if Merritt should ever come on,
When sweetly we heard in the distance, in musical cadence and fall,
Like the voice of the Comforting Angel, the notes of the Officers' Call,
Telling truly relief was approaching, all ready with bullet and blade.
And our trumpet's reply and our cheering a rare flood of harmony made.

We rose to our feet and we shouted, and louder and louder in camp
The cheers that we gave as their horses came on with a dull, steady tramp;
But the Utes did not linger to hear it; they mounted and galloped away
At the very first blast of that trumpet, nor did we implore them to stay;
And nothing we asked of our comrades, but there, in the hearing of all,
To sound once again on the trumpet the notes of the Officers' Call.

NANCY HART.

Here, under a tree in the meadow, I loll in my hammock and read
Of deeds that were done by our women, when service was matter of need;

615

When we fought with the State of Great Britain, and wrested our rights from its thrall,
And hunted its loyal defenders, and gave them to bayonet and ball.

Of the dames and the damosels stately, who graces and courtesy had,
Bedecked with their jewels and laces, in lustring or taffeta clad,
Few scared at the terrible fever, or shrank from the festering wound,
And the patriot soldier in dying both comfort and tenderness found.

There were matrons and maidens more humble, in modest log-cabins they dwelt,
Who, dressed in their ginghams or linseys, as earnest a sympathy felt;
Who were ready as scouts, or as helpers, whenever the need of them came;
Who could skilfully handle the firelock, and draw a fine bead on the game.

Among all these women of mettle, well-known to the country-side then,
Whose quick-witted action in peril threw shame on the dullness of men,
I single the Georgian Nancy, tall, supple, and iron of limb,
Called Hart from the name of her husband—but little they tell us of him.

Hart sat in his cabin at noon-time, when one of his children ran in,
And said: “Ther's six Tories a comin'; an', daddy, you git while you kin!”

616

Nancy hurried him off to the cane-brake, his trusty old rifle in hand—
“Have ready the men when I want 'em; I'll deal with this pestilent band.”

With his men came the partisan leader; and “Howdy, Mis' Hart,” was his speech;
“Yer man isn't home? I allowed not. I jedged he'd be outen our reach.
The nex' time our luck mought be better.” Then added with sarcasm grim—
“I allow we'll take some of his victuals, so long as we mayn't take him.”

“You're more free than welcome,” quoth Nancy; “but better to beg than to steal;
And I never denied bread an' bacon to any one wantin' a meal.”
So she went in a hurry to cooking, and then, when the board had been spread—
“You men draw yer cheers to the table—the bait is all ready,” she said.

A bountiful table was Nancy's; the bacon was done to a turn
The biscuits the whitest and lightest, the butter just fresh from the churn;
A pile, in the comb, of new honey, fried eggs, golden balls in white rings,
And the juiciest venison collops—they thought it a banquet for kings.

Their muskets they stacked at the entrance, and scared themselves at the board,
While the hostess, attentive and silent, their rye-coffee carefully poured;

617

But, ere they had swallowed a morsel, away from the table she sprang,
And, seizing a gun from the doorway, its butt brought to the floor with a clang.

Cried the dame—“You are masterful soldiers, to camp the wrong side of the door:
Ther's five of yer muskets behind me, but here is one musket before!”
“O come now, Mis' Hart!” whined the leader, “that's loaded; so please put it down;
Don't you know that we're friends to the Congress? We've all left the side of the Crown.”

Nancy smiled, and she spake to her eldest—“Give dad an' the neighbors a call;
The rats came for bait to the rat-trap, and here they are caught, one and all.”
Then sternly the musket she levelled—“Be silent, and tell me no lies!
My forefinger rests on the trigger; the man who moves for'ard, he dies!”

Plucky woman! rough-spoken and fearless, prompt, earnest, with love of the land,
With hatred of those who'd enslave it, and bearing her life in her hand—
She is dead; but her name paints a picture; an Amazon, straight as a sword,
With six pallid Tories before her, doomed, shriftless, to die by the cord.

618

THE LOVING THAT NEVER GROWS OLD.

You think as she sits by the fire in her chair,
To wrinkles her face is a prey;
That lustre has fled from her beautiful eyes
And her locks have grown soberly grey;
That the footstep is feeble that once was so strong,
And the fingers are shrunken and cold;
There is nothing of youth but the sweet, sunny smile,
And the loving that never grows old.

But here as I sit on the opposite side,
Before me there come as I gaze,
The beauty and grace that enraptured my soul
In the vigor of earlier days.
For the wrinkles and pallor are only a mask,
And beneath it I readily see
The grace and the truth and the wonderful charms
That made a fond captive of me.

I see the dear lips that were curved like a bow,
The cheeks that were tinted with rose,
The eyes that grew dark when her spirit awoke,
And lightened to blue in repose;
And the long, silken lashes that modestly dropped,
Concealing her happiness, when
I told her the tale that so oft has been told
By the sons to the daughters of men.

Ah, me! through each change that our fortune has brought,
How faithful she stood by my side!
In health or in sickness, in gladness or grief,
The wife kept the vow of the bride.

619

And the branches that grew on the family tree,
Our children, and children of those,
Call her blessed and pray that her life may be long,
And with happiness filled to its close.

Though Time in his envy her beauty would mar,
Small changes his efforts have made,
For my heart and my memory look through my eyes
On a picture that never can fade.
The Present rolls off like the clouds from the sky,
The Past in bright colors appears,
And I see all the charms that attracted me first,
Clear and strong through the mask of the years.

THE CHRISTMAS-TREE.

Never in the forest dun
Struggling hard to meet the sun,
Never standing prim and stark
In some old and royal park,
Never in the valley deep,
Never on the rocky steep,
Never on the grassy plain—
Speck upon the broad champaign—
Such a sight the eye might see
As our last year's Christmas-tree.

What its kind had bred debate—
'Twas a point of serious weight:
Some preferred the feathery pine,
Some the arbor vitæ fine,
Some the hemlock, some the fir,
Some the fragrant juniper,

620

Some the cedar melancholy;
But at length we chose the holly,
Bringing that along to be
Nucleus of our Christmas-tree.

From the copse in triumph brought,
Into shape with patience wrought,
Here a straggling branch was lopped,
There a leaf decaying dropped,
Here a pendant twig was severed—
Well-considered, well-endeavored
Every alteration there—
Till it proudly stood and fair,
As all praised the symmetry
Of that well-formed Christmas-tree.

In the great hall next we placed it,
In a frame of wood we braced it;
'Round its base the moss was strown,
Cunningly as there 't had grown;
Flowers were there, too, not like Spring's,
Mere weak, artificial things,
Mocks of violet and rose;
Yet no blooms could please like those,
As we set them, in our glee,
At the foot of the Christmas-tree.

Yet our tree kept growing there;
Fruit its twigs were made to bear—
Oranges from La Habana,
From the isles the sweet banana.
Pears from California, limes
From the inter-tropic climes,
And, in all their red and gold,
Lady-apples of waxy mould,

621

Hung wherever one could be
Pendant from that Christmas-tree.

There were stranger things than these
On this wonderful of trees—
Skates for Rupert, furs for Milly,
Key of a chest of tools for Willy—
Chest that some time snugly lay
In the library hidden away—
Knitted hood for mamma, and
Smoking-cap for papa—grand!
Trimmed with gold braid gorgeously—
These and more on the Christmas-tree.

Tapers many, and all was done;
But we lit them one by one
Just to see the effect, and then
Every light put out again;
Then, with lingering glance and action,
Showing voiceless satisfaction,
Doors we locked, and slowly crept
Past where sound the children slept,
Though 'twas chance if they or we
Dreamed the most of the Christmas-tree.

When the Christmas eve had come,
Through the hall, to Willy's drum,
Marched we all with silent tongue,
And the door wide open flung;
Screams of laughter, shouts of joy;
Clapped their hands each girl and boy,
First a noise, then sudden pause,
For before us Santa Claus
Stood in well-furred jollity,
Guardian of his Christmas-tree.

622

Silent, laughing much within,
Handing gifts amid the din,
Stood the queer and odd and quaint
Jolly, red-nosed, bright-eyed saint.
White as snow his hair and beard,
And the youngsters, half-afeard,
Would not go to him alone,
Until Willy, bolder grown—
Then a shout! Aunt Sybil! she
Is the saint of the Christmas-tree!

Oh, what laughter! Oh, what fun!
Off goes beard! disguise is done.
“Tought it was Aunt Sib, betause—”
To that speech we gave applause,
And, without a non-content,
Voted Willy eloquent;
And we shouted, and we chattered,
What each talked on little mattered,
But we all averred with glee,
'Twas a wondrous Christmas-tree.

DEAD.

The golden sunflower droops to-day:
There shines no sun to which she may
Look up, and from the garden bed
Lift her rayed and stately head—
My love, my love is dead.

Though leaves be green, and brooks in tune,
And roses mark the month of June,

623

The brooks by bitter springs are fed,
The roses withered, leaves all shed—
My love, my love is dead.

The blue has vanished from the sky;
The clouds are far, the clouds are nigh;
No shadows fall—all dark instead;
I wearily walk, with heavy tread—
My love, my love is dead.

My beard is white, my hair is grey;
December takes the place of May;
I grope along, a blind man, led
By memories sad; my life is sped—
My love, my love is dead.

Blow out the light, and leave me here,
Pallid and cold upon the bier;
A damsel fair to-day was wed;
When that you say all else is said—
My love, my love is dead.

AT SEVENTY-TWO.

The night is drawing near—the night of life;
A tinge of green is o'er the arching blue;
Passes both storm and sunshine, peace and strife;
Deepen the shadows now of seventy-two.

Bright was the dawning of my early days;
Tinted the skies by orange hues and red;
Up rose the sun and with its brilliant rays
A glorious splendor on my pathway shed.

624

O'er hills, through valleys, was my destined way,
Now rising easily to the summits where
Hope showed my sight the goal that forward lay,
Now downward to some Valley of Despair.

Not always lonely. Came ere lifetime's noon
Another with me, and some others came;
I thought kind Fortune gave her choicest boon;
Now none remain at hand to bear my name.

Long ere the shadows lengthened from the west,
They at the wayside fell, and there they lay;
I mourned, but stayed not; steadily on I pressed—
'Twas mine to journey through my little day.

'Tis nearly over; in this darkening hour,
While gloom and sorrow pierce the spirit through,
The limbs grow weak and lose their olden power;
Weakness and darkness come at seventy-two.

Yet, though I lack the strength of morning time,
The pride of noon, here, in the evening still,
I hold as much as in my manhood's prime,
Unflinching purpose and unconquered will.

To pierce the dim beyond the power I lack;
I turn to see behind a fitful light;
The future, vague, uncertain—looking back,
By memory's glow the past of life grows bright.

There lie dead follies in the path I took;
There lie dead joys that struggled long for life;
There lie grand purposes which hope forsook;
There lie the fragments of a noble strife.

625

And there—the one part living of my aim—
The good I did to others, ere I grew
To be heart-chilled by lust of gold and fame—
These meet my backward gaze at seventy-two.

McMANUS' COW.

I had roses a score an' pinks go leor,
An' daisies with goolden eyes,
An' hollyhocks tall an' violets small,
To my neighbor's great surprise.
My garden gate was stout as a wall;
It's nothin' but brish just now:
An' my beautiful garden's a howlin' waste,
Because of McManus' cow.
My roses an' pinks destroyed by the minx—
Bad luck to McManus' cow!

The four-legged brute has the mildest eyes,
An', augh! but she's innocent quite;
She chews her cud for the livelong day,
To choose something else at night.
When the day goes out, thin out goes she,
An' the neighbors all allow
No fince can howld an' no gate can bar
That same McManus' cow.
Without any fail she'd break out of jail—
Bad luck to McManus' cow!

You talk of a huntin' horse, bedad,
The hunter niver was born,
Though he had six legs instead of four,
That she wouldn't put to scorn.

626

You build up a wall that is six feet high
An' say, “I have barred her now;”
Whoop! she cocks her tail an' over she goes,
The vilyan, McManus' cow.
An' some night soon she'll go over the moon—
Bad luck to McManus' cow!

I bought in the shop a safety latch,
An' I fastened it on my gate;
Says I, “My lady, you're smart, I know,
But I'll bother you, sure as fate.”
But she handles her horns as a gentleman does
His blackthorn in a row;
Be jabers, she'd pick your pocket, I think,
This cute McManus' cow.
She's a murderin' baste, to say the laste—
Bad luck to McManus' cow!

Last night at tin I wint to my bed,
An' I purposed, or all were gone,
To gather some posies to pleasure my friends
Next mornin' at peep of dawn.
So early this mornin' out I wint;
An' you may believe me now,
The only posies that met my eye
Were tracks of McManus' cow.
All crushed were they, an' kilt they lay—
Bad luck to McManus' cow.

It's meself that was always a peaceful man,
An' niver disposed to strife,
An' Larry McManus an' I are friends,
An' his Bridget's the friend of my wife;
But I'll have that baste in the bars of the pound
Or I'm a day owlder, I vow;

627

An' a tax they'll lay of a dollar to pay
On the hide of McManus' cow.
That coorse I'll pursue, an' that's what I'll do—
Bad luck to McManus' cow!

OUR FIRST BABY.

Drop from a fountain unfailing!
Into the world here with wailing,
Come at the time of a crisis—
Flickering the light in his eyes is;
Flesh, of a putty consistence;
Eyebrows, of faintest existence;
Nose, just the slightest suspicion;
Body in limpest condition—
This is my boy, and a dear one:
Possibly so, but a queer one.
Had he been larger I'd rather;
Nevertheless, I'm a father.
Pride my whole spirit is filling;
Rapture my body is thrilling—
What makes him wiggle so? Stop him!
Look how he twists! You might drop him.

Gown, of the longest and whitest;
Lace, of the airiest and lightest;
Cap, which they tell me just suits his
Features, and socks on his “footsies”;
Ribbons of blue tie his sleeves up—
Bless us! see here how he heaves up!
Surely the terrible glutton
Hasn't a paunch worth a button.

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Nurse, take the fellow! he's drowned me!
Odor of fresh milk around me—
See! he has deluged my waistcoat,
Utterly ruined my best coat.
Yiouck! once again—goodness gracious!
That comes come of being voracious.
Carry him off to his mother,
Tell her I don't want another.

Stay for a moment, for maybe
I may have been such a baby—
New-comer just such as this is,
Smothered by virginal kisses,
Full as admiringly dandled,
Fully as tenderly handled.
Wonder if he will—it might be—
Six feet and one in his height be;
Wonder if he there will marry—
Wonder if to him they'll carry,
Just such a baby as this is,
Smothered by young women's kisses,
Baby admiringly dandled,
Manikin tenderly handled;
Wonder—oh, stuff! let the thing go!
I am a father, by Jingo!

SASSIETY.

Who hasn't heard
The noisy word
And fight absurd
Which has occurred,
To shock this little town from its propriety;

629

The troubled way,
Of Mesdames A,
And B and J,
And C and K,
Etcetera, all leaders in our best sassiety?

The question which
The newly rich
(Shoddy and “sich”)
So highly pitch,
It causes some of them a deep anxiety;
How they may drop
The former shop,
And therefrom flop
Unto the top—
The summit of the heaven of sassiety.

There's Mrs. Q,
All angel through,
And Mrs. M,
Whom some condemn
As secretly a slave of inebriety;
The ladies all
At M's will call,
But loudly bawl—
“Q's! not at all;
They have not been admitted in sassiety.”

The journals fill,
As journals will,
The scandal-mill
With zeal until
Its product causes language of impiety,
By Mrs. B,
And Mrs. C,

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And Mrs. D,
And Mrs. Z—
Each dame a foremost leader in sassiety.

If Mrs. X
Our feelings vex,
And souls perplex
By nods and becks,
About this violation of propriety,
Shall writers then
As pitying men
Be censured when
They sling a pen
To soften down the trouble in sassiety?

What she may say,
Sweet Mrs. A,
How it may weigh
With Mrs. J,
Are questions after all that cause dubiety;
Yet boldly I
The theme will try,
For Mrs. Y
Says by and by
She'll give me the entree to good sassiety.

How shall I deal
So as to heal
The woes I feel
Affect the weal
Of high-bred dames with dresses in variety;
And how define,
By words of mine,
The rigid line
That should confine—
A broken-glass topped wall around sassiety?

631

What this obtains?
Good blood, or brains,
Or hard-won gains,
Or flattering trains,
Of sycophants who slaver to satiety?
A gentle birth,
Wide lands on earth,
Purse of huge girth,
Or honest worth,
Which should command the key to good sassiety?

The question great
Which here I state,
Needs no debate;
For from this date,
My answer stops their donkeydernfooliety;
Let Mesdames B,
And C, and D,
And G, and P,
All come with me—
Where Avery Drycuss goes is good sassiety.

It is not needed to explain this expressive word to the leaders of sassiety, who have all been suckled on liquid languages, and fed with etymological pap.

THE DEAD HAND.

I was a boy, a beardless stripling, then;
And all odd men were heroes to my notion;
So toward old Hamet, as the man of men,
I nursed a feeling bordering on devotion;
The mystery hanging round him, in my eyes,
Served like a mist to magnify his size.

632

That he was rich was nothing; at that age
Wealth does not captivate and dull the fancy;
Nor did the fact he was reputed sage
Act on me with the power of necromancy;
But 'twas the mystery of his origin
That served my worship of the man to win.

Among us he had come, and none knew why,
From some far home, perhaps, whence none discovered;
Gaunt, pallid, silent, and with bearing high,
And over him that nameless something hovered,
That cloud impenetrable, dense, and dark,
Which baffles inquiry, and checks remark.

He bought the Beardsley place when Beardsley died,
Enlarged and beautified the stately dwelling,
Laid out a lawn in front, and on each side,
With lofty trees the noonday shade compelling,
And, with a troop of serfs to wait on him,
Lived there alone, stern, smileless, sad, and grim.

How he first came, or why, to notice me,
Who, socially, moved in another station,
Was hard to fathom, save it were that he
Was flattered by the earnest admiration
I showed at all he said, the few times when,
Scarce once a month, he deigned to mix with men.

So we two came to speaking terms at last,
And even to be companions in a fashion;
And when the Rubicon between was passed,
And he had found my most controlling passion
Was love of books, he let me win my Rome,
And in his library find sway and home.

633

And then that grim and silent man unbent,
And told me tales of travel and of wonder,
Of life within the Bedouin's leathern tent,
The yellow, heated sky Arabian under,
Rides on the pampas, and beneath the trees
Of the great forests in the Indian seas.

But now and then amid the rushing flow
Of vivid words, he'd pause in the narration,
And sinking in his chair, would shrink as though
Of weight of woe some long accumulation,
Borne with a smiling face, but heart forlorn,
Had grown at length too grievous to be borne.

Reckless, boy-like, I asked him why he shrank,
What pulled him down so terribly and quickly;
A flash of pain passed o'er his features blank,
And came the answer huskily and thickly—
“No luxury, no wealth, remorse can drown;
There is a dead hand, boy, that pulls me down.

“There is a dead hand ever grasping me,
The dead hand of my early aspirations;
The ghost of what is not, yet was to be,
Dizzies my brain with meaningless gyrations;
To seek, not find; to win, not woo; all these
Make up the wine of life; I drink the lees.”

He quickly rose, and sudden left the room,
And sought his chamber, while I sat there stunned;
We met no more in life; he nursed his gloom
Henceforth alone; companionship he shunned;
My words had bared some scar he fain would hide,
And ere a week the solitary died.

634

I was his heir, but why he made me so,
I cannot fathom; 'tis to me a mystery;
Whose was that “dead hand,” who of us may know?
Who learn the dark lines of his former history?
None knew if it were lunacy, or sin,
None knew his origin; none found his kin.

None knew if crime had marked his early days,
Or if some faithless friend his trust deluded;
If woman's falsehood which so surely slays
Had with his love, his happiness concluded;
Only in this the curious world grew wise—
A dead hand dragged him down who hoped to rise.

THE QUARREL OF THE WHEELS.

I sat within my wagon on a heated summer day,
And watched my horse's flinging feet devour the dusty way,
When suddenly a voice below shrieked out, it seemed to me—
“You're bigger, but you cannot go one half so fast as we!”

I looked around, but no one there my straining vision caught;
We were alone upon the road; I must have dreamed, I thought:
Then almost at my feet I heard, distinct, a voice's sound—
“You'll never overtake us, though you twice go o'er the ground!”

It puzzled me at first, but soon the fact upon me broke—
The fore-wheels of the wagon had thus to the hind-wheels spoke.

635

I listened for the answer, and it came in accents low—
“You're no farther now before us than you were an hour ago!”

I waited the rejoinder, but no farther answer came;
The fore-wheels were too busy, and the hind-wheels were the same;
And though I strained my hearing much, depressing well my head,
By fore-wheels or by hind-wheels not another word was said.

The matter set me thinking how in life one often knows
Of bitter controversies with the words absurd as those;
How many claim as merit what is after all but fate,
With success that others make for them exultingly elate.

Your wise and mighty statesman just before his fellow set,
Strives, as fore-wheel in the wagon, farther from the hind to get;
Rolls along in his complacence, as he thinks, to name and fame,
To find, the journey ended, his position just the same.

The patient toiler struggles, but no inch beyond is gained;
And he grumbles that, despite him, one position is maintained—
Not reflecting that the Owner who can everything control,
Bade him ever as the hindmost for a fitting purpose roll.

Still speeds along the wagon by the steady roadster drawn,
Till ends the weary journey, and the light of day has gone;
And all the rivalries of men, the quiet thinker feels,
Are idle as the quarrels of the fore and hinder wheels.

636

HAUNTED.

Old Martin Vail, the lord of many acres,
Fertile and rich, the country's wonder round,
A man who prospered in all undertakings,
Yet little comfort found—

He was not native to the place; a stranger;
And we know nothing of him, save his name;
But certain he was rich, the man had money,
And money's worth the same.

But with it all, there came at times a tremor
Over his neighbors, when his name they spoke;
For thirty years or more, one thing mysterious
Puzzled our country folk.

Where'er he walked, in forest, field, or highway,
At times he'd stop, and backward sudden look;
And then, as though some foeman were pursuing,
His form in terror shook.

What shape it was of memory or fancy
Which chased him thus, he ne'er to mortal told;
He gave no confidence, and brooked no question,
But passed on, stern and cold.

A good old man, they said, for all his coldness;
Stern in his manner. Who of that took heed,
When sick, or poor, or wretched ever found him
Their readiest friend at need?

637

Riches rained on him, howsoe'er he lavished.
That moved him not, the gaunt old man and grim;
And, when at last he died, whate'er his secret,
That also died with him.

Some thought him mad, and others deemed him guilty
Of one sad error, or perchance a crime;
And held some spectre of a wrong pursued him,
Done in his early time.

The good he did was speedily forgotten,
Even by those who felt his bounty most;
And now the memory of his backward glances
Haunts all men, like a ghost.

A kindness shown seems written in the water;
A fault of manner carved in solid rock;
Our better deeds die out and quickly moulder;
Our worst survive to shock.

But, ah! how many of us, poor, frail mortals,
Whate'er our state, are haunted, day by day,
By the grim ghost of some old wrong, or error,
We may not scare away!

How we would fain atone, and in repentance,
With earnest effort work some little good,
Yet cannot shun the phantom born of conscience,
However much we would.

With pallid face it dogs our weary footsteps,
With outstretched finger points whene'er we turn;
And deep remorse lights torturing fire within us
To burn and burn and burn.

638

Ah! did we look before and not behind us,
And only on the future cast our gaze,
We might forget the phantoms vague that follow
Forever on our ways.

The Past is dead. There let it lie forever.
The Future lives. Let that be aim of ours.
The weeds behind us—let them fall and wither.
Before us grow the flowers.

THE CASTLE IN AIR.

There's a ladder of ropes which some lovers ascend
When parents object to the wooing,
And a ladder of hopes, having no upper end,
Which we oftentimes mount to undoing.

There's a ladder of fame, which the bold love to climb,
Casting down looks of scorn on the humble;
And a ladder of life, with its base upon Time,
From whose top every mortal must tumble.

There's a ladder of wealth, and we have it in proof
That sometimes it is longer or shorter;
And a ladder that goes to a four-story roof,
By which laborers carry up mortar.

Now, I have a ladder with foot on the ground,
Whose top hid by clouds in the sky is;
My spirit, which frequently mounts the first round,
Not a step farther up ever rises.

639

I meant it to lead to my castle in air,
One of those called Chateaux en Espagne;
For I boasted—if ever I get a seat there,
Want, woe, and calumny, I ban ye!

There once was a ladder to heaven arose
For a patriarch; but I must make observation
that angels climbed on it, which shows
Mine is not the Original Jacob's.

For mine has but imps perched upon it—a crew
That are not calculated to raise your
Good thoughts—they are spirits that some folks call blue,
But their color is darker than azure.

Ah, were it a ladder to heaven indeed,
Were its rounds made of true Christian virtues,
Hope, Charity, Faith would all stand me in need,
And my own time to mount I could there choose.

But humility aids me not here in my strait,
And sorrow my spirit so crushes,
That down by the foot of my ladder I wait,
Till my lost courage back to me rushes.

It is here! It is here! I am up! I am up!
Black clouds and white mists, I go by ye!
Fair Hebe the nectar presents in her cup!
Ye base carles of earth, I defy ye!

I am Count of Air Castle, of Fancy grandee;
My proud robe of state I have that on;
The chiefest of nobles doff bonnet to me,
As I stand by the king with my hat on.

640

Let down the portcullis! vile warder, keep out
Old friends, who would bring me disaster;
I ask not the visits of base rabble rout;
Of the Castle in Air I am master.

VAMOS, JOHN!

John Chinaman, my jo, John,
You patient, pig-tailed cuss,
Why did you come across the sea
To interfere with us?
Why did you leave the flowery land
Where rice and tea plants grow,
To vex the pious hoodlums' hearts,
John Chinaman, my jo?

John Chinaman, my jo, John,
It fairly curls my hair
When I am told that you by Joss,
And not by Jingo swear.
And thus you are no Christian, John—
The hoodlums tell us so—
And much you shock their piety,
John Chinaman, my jo.

John Chinaman, my jo, John,
You still to Buddha cling,
While the hoodlums go to church and pray,
Which is a better thing.
The sand-lot civilization, John,
'Tis not your lot to know,
Hence you're a poor barbarian,
John Chinaman, my jo.

641

John Chinaman, my jo, John,
On our Pacific slope
They speak of you as most unclean—
The less they know of soap.
And they whose faces fertile crops
Of rare grog-blossoms grow,
Are shocked at such a leprous wretch,
John Chinaman, my jo.

John Chinaman, my jo, John,
When we a treaty made,
You should have known 'twas only done
For profit on your trade.
'Twas heads I win, and tails you lose,
With right to come and go,
But not to give such rights to you,
John Chinaman, my jo.

John Chinaman, my jo, John,
'Tis plain enough to me,
If dirtier you than hoodlums are,
Unclean you sure must be.
Your morals must be low, indeed,
If hoodlums think them so,
And therefore you git up and git,
John Chinaman, my jo.

THE MONEY-KING'S CHORUS.

Bring out a vise of iron strong,
With a screw of fraud and a lever of wrong
For the people suffering much and long,
As slaves to every faction;

642

We'll squeeze the fools in spite of their shrieks
Till the tears roll down their pallid cheeks,
And their agony every fibre speaks,
And we'll call the thing—“Contraction.”

Put down the lever! turn the screw!
Do they owe us a dollar? Put them through
A scheme to make that dollar two,
Nor let their struggles save 'em;
Rag money is a thing accurst—
We made the bubble—we'll make it burst;
But we'll get 'em in hot water first,
And then, by Jove! we'll shave 'em.

What matter if the grimy slaves
For the profit of money-getting knaves
Are daily hurried to wretched graves
By woe and need and famine—
What matter if wages shrink each day
While flour and beef at the old price stay,
So long as the rich their pockets may
Additional plunder cram in?

To live on what they do not earn
Is the wisdom bankers and brokers learn;
So give the screw another turn,
And squeeze the people thorough;
If the famished toiler lack for bread,
We'll give him a stone or two instead;
If he have no roof to cover his head,
Confound him! let him borrow.

His loud complaint is paltry fuss—
What are his woes and pains to us,
So long as feeling covetous
All love and pity smothers?

643

To kindliness we bid farewell,
Although our golden beads we tell,
And pray—“Our Father who art in Hell,
Give us the bread of others.”

Screw long! Screw hard! and in the days
The people, wakened from amaze,
Our palaces to earth shall raze,
And hunt us down like vermin;
The wealth that from the mass we stole
Abroad shall pleasant life control,
At Botany Bay, or Symmes's Hole,
As Satan shall determine.

THE IRON-CLAD.

Mark the molten metal roaring, in a lava-torrent pouring,
From the outlet of the furnace to the sandy moulds below,
And the gates that seem infernal, opening on a fire eternal,
Where a thousand souls in anguish writhe and suffer in its glow;
See with faces hot and glowing, hither coming, thither going,
Into firelight, into darkness, toilers hurrying to and fro:
Those you see—a shallow gazing; nothing more before your eyes
Than the dense heat and the toilers; there your vision lives—and dies.

These you see, and ends your seeing; but with me there spring to being
Sights of doing, sounds material, in the blue and orange blaze.
I behold the ships of war, the partly builded vessels swarthy,
With their naked ribs of metal, resting grimly on the ways;

644

Hear each half-built frigate give its sound of hammer-stroke on rivets,
Springing from the corded muscles of our modern Kuklopes,
Where the broad and busy ship-yards stretch along the river-side,
On the sloping banks of Schuylkill, on the Hudson, and the Clyde.

Now one frigate dons her armor—plates of steel, that none may harm her;
Now they launch her in the water, now they fit her for the sea;
Now they place her engines ponderous, in her centre, fashioned wondrous;
Now the screw, whose blades propel her wheresoe'er she wills to be;
Now her guns are ranged in order on her iron-guarded border—
Thunder-toned to speak her anger when her wrath is flowing free—
Thunder-toned to speak her anger, as from sea to sea she sails,
Moving terror of the nations, mocker of the waves and gales.

Looking in the depths cavernous of the fiercely raging furnace,
I behold her as she cruises on the ocean far and wide,
Where the tempest howling round her, vainly striving to confound her,
In its failure pays a tribute to her stoutness and her pride,
Where the waves that rise before her, soaring wrathful topple o'er her,
Crushed to foam, to spray-drift scattered, impotently leave her side;

645

While the wooden navies nigh her shrink in terror at the ire
Of this daughter of the furnace, of this child of ore and fire.

Then the foe, depending wrongly on the fortress builded strongly,
Strive to stay the sable monster by the balls from cannons vast—
From her iron side rebounding, with a clangor loud resounding,
Merely pebbles at a giant by a babe in anger cast;
But through water grimly speeding, balls and bursting shells unheeding,
Moves the iron kraken proudly till the cannon-range is past;
Then between the town and fortress she her terrible wrath delivers
Till the stones to fragments crumble and the mighty bastion shivers.

Now the vision changes quickly; now the storm-clouds gather thickly;
Through the darkness of the tempest, on the iron-clad careers;
Neither waves to heaven aspiring, nor the raging wind untiring,
Nor the huge swell of the ocean, nor the lightning-stroke she fears.
Ha! a joint has sprung! She lurches! through the seam the water searches!
In the white-fringed, seething billows, lo! the monster disappears!
She has passed from sight forever, from the eager-straining gaze;
And my sight grows dimmer, dimmer, at the vision-blinding blaze.

646

ALL DEAD.

The room is cheerless, chill, and dark;
One candle on the mantel placed,
Within the grate a smouldering spark—
Coal costs too much—want comes from waste.
Yonder the pallet woos my frame;
But slumber from my eyes has fled,
And Peter Garnett—that's my name—
Sits, breathes, and yet the man is dead.

I'm ninety-two—but that's not old—
My hundredth year I yet might see;
They say I only love my gold—
Why not? What else is left for me?
I had a wife and children twain,
Born ere my manhood had been sped:
I had a friend—ah, never again!
Wife, children, friend, they all are dead.

There was my wife—ah, let me see—
I married Mary Bond, you know;
She died when I was thirty-three—
That's nearly sixty years ago.
Mary—a blessed name they say—
The Magdalen had it—we were wed—
How can one's self, one's self betray?
And yet she left me—she is dead.

A friend—I thought I had one gained,
In manner frank, in language fair;
I learned that friendship might be feigned,
That words were only stricken air.

647

He was my idol—I had trust
In everything he did or said;
The idol shivered into dust
One day—he did it—he is dead.

And children—Nelly, at my knee,
So fair, so loving—could I fear
She might be ever lost to me,
Think on me less, be held less dear?
Her husband was a boor—a wretch;
The love she sought grew hate instead;
No child of hers survives to fetch
Her features back—and she is dead.

My son—a proper boy was John—
Made money—he was born to thrive;
Keen as his father—he is gone;
He died last year at sixty-five.
Riches were born of thrift and care;
My long life was his only dread;
And yet his father was his heir—
He never married; he is dead.

A wife! why, that's my store of gold;
A friend! long rows of houses tall;
My children! they're the lands I hold—
My riches have outlived them all.
I hoard—I have no heirs who'd strive
To clip the old man's slender thread;
The wealth around me is alive,
But he who scraped it up is dead.

Hark! what's that noise? I surely dozed.
Ah! there's some bonds not put away—

648

Palsied my limbs—yon chest not closed—
Some thief by chance this way might stray.
The fire is out, my hand is numb;
The candle flickers—is that a tread?
Who's there? Speak, stranger! are you dumb?
Nothing. I cannot stir. All dead.

THE END OF IT ALL.

Alone in this chamber, this low, naked room
Where the lamplight, low flickering, deepens the gloom,
This pallet of straw, and yon rickety chair,
This squalor that matches the wretch's despair,
Are things nicely fitted to want and disease—
My once vast possessions have shrunk into these.

And this is the end of a lifetime—yet, see!
A part of the past floats in shadow to me;
The shadow takes form—metamorphosis strange!
The wretchedness round finds a marvellous change!
Boon comrades come back, and they bring as I lie
Sweet sounds to my ear, and bright lights to my eye.

Light, music, and flowers! How it sounds! how they glare!
Long-parted companions sit here and sit there.
Welcome each to his place! Fill each glass to the brim,
Hold it up to the light, and then drain it to him
Who started before me new paths to essay,
And died, just a twelvemonth ago to a day.

The best of good fellows, true, manly, and just,
Whose name is a memory, whose body is dust,

649

To the duty of friendship he ever was true,
He never fawned on me, nor flattered like you;
He could censure my faults, at my vices could frown—
When he died, my last ship on life's ocean went down.

His birthday—ah, no! 'Tis the day a man dies,
Not the day of his birth, that is kept by the wise;
For life is a prison with fetters and gloom,
And the doorway to freedom is found in the Tomb;
And 'tis pleasant to know of the friends that we love,
That their death-hour below is their birth-hour above.

Fill again! fill again! while my voice chokes a sigh,
And the smile on my lip mocks the tear in my eye;
Sweet the memory and sad, for the past years are seven
Since my Bonnibel left me one morning for heaven.
Sweet wife of my bosom, whose shape I recall—
Tears fall in the cup—'tis from rapture they fall.

Who says that I killed her? Alas, it is true—
Or was it my madness my comforter slew?
Though conscience still scourges with fetters and whips,
No word of reproach ever fell from her lips;
But in that last moment, she lay on my breast,
Gave a smile, and forgave me, then passed to her rest.

How sparkles the wine in its amber-hued light!—
What folly! what madness! no revel to-night;
In this bare, squalid chamber no banquet is spread,
No ribald oblation is poured for the dead;
Around me lie scattered the wrecks of my years,
And I am alone with remorse, and these tears.

The death-throe that racked me my memory stirred;
Fever-born were the songs and the laughter I heard;

650

Those who fawned and who flattered and fed at my cost,
Left to never return when my fortune was lost;
The penniless spendthrift lies here with no friend,
His life passed in revel—and this is the end.

MATTY RAINES.

On that corner you look at a pawnbroker's sign,
On this at a palace of gin;
Convenient conjunction, though somewhat malign—
Want and Sin.

And both do a fine, thriving business there,
And each helps the other to gains,
And she is a customer good to the pair—
Matty Raines.

'Tis Poverty avenue this, though it bears
Another less terrible name;
But penury suffers and misery glares
All the same.

Looking there where the tumble-down tenements lean,
As though they intended to fall,
Where the children in rags, and unkempt and unclean,
Fight and squall;

Where men, or those made in the image of man,
Though the pattern be somewhat awry,
Having lowered their manhood as much as they can,
Stagger by;

651

Yon slatternly dame, with an ill-natured scowl,
And elbows akimbo, stands there,
Using words of abuse that will suit with the foul,
Murky air.

Some hastily pass her; some stand there and scoff
At the passion that thrills her; and one
Indignantly tells the old crone to be off,
Or be done.

Poor old Matty! her voice sinks in rage to a hiss—
Who, forty years since, would have thought
The gay-hearted girl to a thing vile as this
Could be brought?

She was pet of the village when I was a boy,
And so I remember her well;
Her frowns would bring woe, and her smiles scatter joy
Where they fell.

Eyes of sapphire, long ringlets of gold, pearly skin,
Cheeks flushed with a delicate red—
The proudest such beauty might glory to win,
So they said.

All idle each tread of her story to seek;
'Tis the same wretched tale that of old,
Where man had no scruple and woman was weak,
Has been told.

Few know of her now in the place of her birth;
A mere dim tradition remains
That once in rare beauty there lived upon earth
Matty Raines.

652

And he who betrayed her? Respected by all,
Almost worshipped by kinsman and friend,
He placidly waits for the heavenly call
To his end.

A good man? Of course, for if language could paint
A picture with coloring free
Of a husband, a father, a patriot, a saint,
'Twould be he.

There is Matty; and there is the pawnbroker's sign,
And there is the palace of gin;
But he has escaped from those demons malign,
Want and Sin.

He waits for his rest from a duty well done;
He forgets about Matty, and yet
I feel in some doubt if the Pitying One
Will forget.

STORY OF THE MOUND.

Far in the West, where the great rivers run,
Evermore crossing the path of the sun—
Far in the West, on the low, level lands,
Silent a mound in the solitude stands.

What is its history? Who can unfold,
Fathom its mystery, cloudy, untold?
No one has answered the problem of years—
Listen the story that fell on my ears.

Once in that region, long centuries since,
Dwelt there a people and reigned there a prince;

653

Sunk were that people in thraldom abhorred;
Cruel that ruler as ever wore sword.

Gloomy in peace-time and joyous in strife,
Born lacking pity, and reckless of life,
Nothing whatever it mattered to him
What his thralls suffered to pleasure his whim.

Much he repined that his dwelling should stand
Scarcely above the mean cabins at hand—
Chafed that his palace no higher should be
Than the poor huts of the low in degree.

Therefore he summoned his serfs to the toil—
Emmets, and ant-hill to raise on the soil:
Quick they obeyed him in spite of their tears,
Heaping this mound by the labor of years.

When in his eyes of right size it appeared,
High on its summit a palace was reared—
Timbers unhewn, of adobe the wall;
Yet 'twas a palace, and stately and tall.

“Here,” he exclaimed, “shall my greatness have room,
Palace while living, and after, my tomb;
Monument this of my power and my pride,
Record of me and my glory beside.

“Here when at last I have ended my reign,
Evermore glorious this will remain;
Here when my people have all passed away,
Firmly will stand this, my structure of clay.

“When in the future they come to the place,
Seeking to learn of a long-perished race,

654

Though all tradition to teach them should fail,
Symbols here carven shall tell them the tale.

“Then will they wonder to know of my fame,
Silent and awe-struck will gaze at my name,
Speak of me humbly and reverent then,
As of the greatest of rulers of men.”

They, when he died (even princes expire),
Built him no tomb, and they raised him no pyre;
But, as he ordered, they buried him there
In this clay palace, and honored his heir.

Centuries passed, and some travellers came,
Gazed on the mound, but they knew not the name—
Name of its founder; the palace of clay
Time and the rain-storm had carried away.

Naught but the earth-mound remained, and they said:
“Break through the soil; 'tis some home for the dead;
Let us discover what there may be found—”
So with their mattocks they opened the mound.

Slabs of red sandstone they found; under those
Beads and stone hammers their labors disclose,
Fillet of copper, and sword, green with rust,
Bones that on meeting the air fell to dust.

As for the prince, of his name or his fame
Nothing was known by the strangers who came;
Little they marvelled at relics they found;
Only their wonder arose at the mound.

655

NOW I AM OLD.

The silver threads are in my locks,
The wrinkles deepen in my face;
Time deals me here its hardest knocks,
And three-score years come on apace.
I wonder much at Flitroffe's stride—
Two miles upon my muscles tell;
A fact to mortify the pride
Of one who one time walked so well.
Feeble and friendless, lacking gold,
I wander dreamily and sad,
And yet I should be rather glad
That I am old.

For many troubles now I miss,
And many dangerous pleasures, too;
No longer now delusive bliss
In youthful pleasures I pursue.
No longer now do fond mammas
To me their daughters' merits show;
To ocean beaches, mountain spas,
No longer I am forced to go.
By sudden feeling rendered bold,
Maidens no more make eyes at me,
For well the laughing darlings see
That I am old.

No longer now with purpose rash
New enterprises I essay,
That merely end in loss of cash—
Those follies of a former day.
And now Nevada's silver mines,
Or Erie's fall and Central's rise,

656

Or lots upon improvement lines,
Have no attraction in my eyes.
My growing years have made me cold;
I ponder long ere I engage;
For caution best comports with age,
And I am old.

No more they ask me out, the boys,
To frolics lasting half the night,
Where drinking deeply breeds a noise,
And maudlin friendship ends in fight.
At home I take my quiet glass,
My wife and children sitting near;
I let all fiery liquors pass,
Contented with my simple beer.
Oft of the revels I am told,
But not of headaches that remain;
I care not for their joy and pain,
For I am old.

The politicians of the place
The gaping crowd electioneer,
And scatter, with unblushing face,
Smiles, bribes, and falsehood far and near.
I care not who are in or out,
If one shall win, another lose;
Let knaves intrigue and noodles shout,
The devil will some day get his dues.
No plans to me they need unfold—
'Tis hard to teach old dogs new tricks,
And so I laugh at politics,
Now I am old.

Welcome the wrinkles; hail the grey
That streaks the hair and tints the beard;

657

To death these indicate the way—
Death to be neither shunned nor feared.
I've lived a rather stormy life,
Have fought my way for many years,
And welcome respite from the strife
That shook me oft with hopes and fears.
He rests in peace who sleeps in mould;
And glad am I that to such rest
My tottering footsteps are addressed,
Now I am old.

TAKING IT EASY.

I laughed when Dora said she'd have me—
My star of life seemed mounting high;
My heart with joy ecstatic bounded—
Why what a precious fool was I!
And when she left me for another
I heaved a most heart-breaking sigh,
And tear-drops fell as big as bullets—
Why what a precious fool was I
To laugh when ill was hanging o'er
And cry when fortune smiled once more.

I smiled when I was nominated
For Congress, politicians by
Who thought my pocket needed bleeding—
Why what a precious fool was I!
I frowned when after the election
I found our party high and dry,
And glared upon the other fellows—
Why what a precious fool was I

658

To smile when frowns should scorn attest,
And frown when smiles became me best.

I sang aloud when wealth came pouring
Without sufficient reason why,
And spent it as I got it quickly—
Why what a precious fool was I!
I moaned when all my riches vanished,
And left me toil again to try,
And fretted much at my reverses—
Why what a precious fool was I
To sing when moans were just the thing,
And moan when I had cause to sing.

Now, white-haired bachelor and merry,
I laugh at hearing others sigh;
To sigh when sighs are useless only,
Why not that precious fool am I.
I smoke my pipe and sip my toddy,
My spirits neither low nor high;
Nor pain nor pleasure much excites me—
Not such a precious fool am I!
Wealth, women, politics—all these
I let alone, and take my ease.

THE RAGPICKER.

Crossing the busy thoroughfare, to-day,
Picking my way along the muddy flags,
A wretched crone one moment barred my way—
Stooping to gather there some scattered rags
That in the kennel lay.

659

I was not moved just then by kindly grace,
And, angered at the stop, I curtly said:
“Come, come, good woman! Give us passers place!
Don't block the way!” At that she raised her head
And looked me in the face.

Her visage wan, with age and trouble seamed;
Her form was doubled by the weight she bore;
And strange impression o'er me faintly gleamed
That somewhere during life those eyes before
Had on me terribly beamed.

With trembling finger raised, she said aloud:
“You're rich and honored greatly, Hubert Leigh;
And yet, for all you are so high and proud,
You once were ready to give place to me,
Head bent and body bowed.”

Then from the darkness of her eyes there leapt
A light indignant, as her form she drew
To its full height and from me angry swept;
While I, thrilled by the baleful glance she threw,
My way unsteady kept.

What story was there in those strange, wild eyes?
Where had I met them in some former state?
They brought the sight of tears, the sound of sighs,
A pang of woe, the shipwreck of a fate
Unhappy and unwise.

What time, if ever, was it that I knew
That wretched hag, in this life or the last?
Was pre-existence, as some tell us, true?
In some metempsychosis of the past
Had those eyes crossed my view?

660

Then woke my memory with a sudden start;
The past unrolled before me like a scroll.
This was the weird of her who held my heart
In days gone by; who was my other soul,
From which 'twas death to part.

Her frown was torture and her smile was bliss;
I would have pledged existence on her truth;
'Twas rapture even her garment's hem to kiss,
The idol worshipped in my earnest youth.
And had she fallen to this?

She spurned my humble suit, since I was poor—
I could not promise luxury with her life;
So, crushing love, position to insure,
She sold herself to be a rich man's wife
And thought her state secure.

We parted, as we thought, forevermore;
I found my love in gain, and wooed it well;
Year after year I added to my store—
On my side of the fence each apple fell
The tree of Fortune bore.

Whate'er my fingers touched was turned to gold;
Success became my lackey; but success,
Though generating for me wealth untold,
Is not enough my desolate life to bless—
Now I am alone and old.

It comforts not, as here I walk along,
That she who stabbed my soul has sunk so low;
I would I had not met her in the throng,
Reviving memories buried long ago,
Bringing to life my wrong.

661

A crowd out yonder. What the words they say?
“An old ragpicker, stooping, struck and killed
By a runaway horse.” Still keeps the world its way;
Since last her glance my heart with anguish thrilled
'Tis forty years to-day.

ON CHRISTMAS EVE.

A SIMPLE TALE IN RHYME.

I.—WANT.

That Christmas Eve the wild storm wind smote hard the window-panes,
Drew, pointing to the nor'-nor'east, the tips of weather-vanes,
And tossed the snow in heaps and drifts through city streets and lanes.

Then—when at length the tempest ceased and moonlight came to crown
The roofs and chimney—wild with joy went people of the town,
Save one, who from a casement high looked sadly, wearily down.

The lights blazed in the crowded shops where all went buzz and whirr;
With eager women and hurrying men the streets were all astir;
For them the joy of coming joy, but want and woe for her.

662

A dim light from a flickering lamp, in the stove a feeble blaze;
Neither could gloom from out the room, nor from her spirit raise,
As thought went back on dreary track to past and better days.

“Ah, weary poverty!” she cried, “with life continual Lent;
But little gained by constant toil, that little quickly spent
On scanty food and scantier clothes, and to feed the dragon—Rent!

“Just now the fatherless Barbara, my darling child and sweet,
Robed in her little cotton gown, knelt praying at my feet—
It pierced my heart to hear her voice for a Christmas gift entreat.

“How hard the prattle of the child smote both on heart and ear!
Her trustful hope that Santa Claus a doll would bring her here—
And I to know no doll, no gift, her little heart would cheer!

“The poorest child to-morrow morn will find some toy to please;
And she who in yon closet sleeps, when praying on her knees,
Had faith. Ah, me! her Santa Claus sleeps far beneath the seas.

“How vivid rises memory of the year when she was born,
And how, as in her crib she lay one happy Christmas morn,
Her doting father trinkets brought the darling to adorn.

663

“Three weary years have gone since he—the father—sailed away;
Two years ago the ship they spoke, somewhere in Baffin's Bay;
That was the last e'er seen or heard of the whaler Ellen Grey.

“And no one knows if the fierce pack-ice have crushed her ribs of oak,
If her bones lie on some rocky reef, by battering billows broke,
Or if she foundered in the sea, or burned with lightning stroke.

“'Tis many a hundred years since He, the Son of Man, was born,
Who wrapped Him in a form of flesh, and suffered hate and scorn
To raise the lowly from the dust and comfort those forlorn.

“Yet, spite of that, how many who for bread receive a stone;
And some there be, both poor and proud, who hug their want alone,
And die with pangs of hunger fierce, nor let their need be known,

“Who will not point to gaping wounds Samaritans pass by;
And so it is in this world of ours, where most things go awry,
The clamorous gain whate'er they crave, the silent suffer and die.

“Ah! death is not the worst that may the wounded drudge befall;
Death comes alike to poor and rich and spreads o'er both its pall;
But death is only the road to life, and God is over all.

664

“A worse than death, this ill-paid toil, this struggle bread to win.
To find as now that I have naught in basket or in bin—”
A smart rap sounded on the door, and she wearily said—“Come in!”

II.—PLENTY.

Came in a rugged butcher boy, with more of strength than grace,
A heavy basket on his arm, a grin upon his face,
That was so full of cheery fun, it seemed to light the place.

“There is a turkey, mum,” he said, “the finest in the shop;
Them's rattlin' cranberries in the box—the biggest in the crop;
There's chops, that sal'ry's a bo-kay—” Amazed, she uttered, “Stop!

“I did not order these, my boy; they are not meant for me;
You're laboring under some mistake.” “Well, I guess not,” quoth he.
“See here, mum, you are Mrs. Grey, fourth floor, at forty-three.

“Of course you are. Then them is yourn, and them there goods'll stay—
I never make mistakes, I don't. There's nothin', mum, to pay.”
And then that ungrammatical boy downstairs went whistling gay.

What generous hand it was that gave she could not even guess;
Had she but dared to hope, her hope had fallen far short of less,
And now she knew her words too weak her feelings to express.

665

“Such want before, and plenty now,” she said, and dropped a tear—
“God bless the giver, whoe'er it be, who sends this welcome cheer;
But, ah! there are but two of us—if John were only here!”

Some lumbering steps upon the stairs, much knocking by the way,
Two stout men entered, laden down, and naught they had to say
Beyond, “Here are the groceries for Mrs. Ellen Grey.”

“But who—but who—” she stammered forth, “who sent these goods to me?”
“As stout and bluff a sailor, ma'am, as ever came from sea;
‘For Mrs. Grey,’ was all he said, but he spent his money free.”

Great packages the porters piled on table, chairs, and floor—
A horn of plenty shaken out—till they could pile no more,
Then shouldering their hampers huge they vanished through the door.

Through Nelly's brain there surged a wave of mingled hope and dread—
What words were these that carelessly that night the man had said—
Ah! could it be the cruel sea had given up its dead?

A gentle rap! With trembling hands she opened wide the door;
A woman there whose face and form she once had seen before,
Who gazed with sweet and kindly smile upon the plenteous store.

666

Emotion thrilled the visitor. “My name is Mrs. Cruise;
We occupy a flat below—you surely can't refuse
A kind reception when I bring—but can you bear good news?”

“My husband!” “He is in our room.” One moment, she was gone,
And Ellen heard a well-known step, as close her breath was drawn;
A strong man clasped her in his arms; but all she said was—“John!”

III.—BARBARA.

There seated with his wife on knee, the happy sailor said:
“We wonder much, we whalers do, why all you people dread
This little snow on ground below, and little cold o'erhead.

“Were they to make a voyage once within the Arctic seas,
What they esteem a blizzard here would seem a gentle breeze—
I tell you, Nell, the weather there knows really how to freeze.

“Your fire is scanty—even for you”—and here he awkward laughed;
“But cheer up, lass, we'll load ere long more coal upon this craft,
And make all shipshape here and trim, and snug both fore and aft.

“And why none heard a word from us—ay, ay! you want to know;
It seems to me as I sit here 'twas fifty years ago
Since we were locked up close and tight within that ugly floe.

667

“Jammed in by ice-packs on the day we filled up, decks and all,
And hardly room enough on board for men to pull and haul,
And powerless there we saw the ice around us creep and crawl.

“And thus we were for nigh two years, all frozen hard and fast,
Nothing to see on every side beyond the ice-field vast,
And weary life through dreary days continual we passed.

“Not altogether dull the time; we frequent hunted seals
Coming to holes in ice for air; we were not scant of meals;
But, oh! how homesick in such plights the weary mariner feels!

“At length the great floe broke in twain upon an autumn day;
It broke in twain just at the place where our stout vessel lay—
I tell you he was a master-hand that built the Ellen Grey!

“What time I had the vessel launched, and called her after you,
I knew the name would be a spell to keep her staunch and true:
And oft amid that waste I thought of Barbara and you.

“And so when Salem's wharves I reached and found you gone away,
I let the mate the cargo break; I did not stop or stay,
But sought New York and only found the place you lived to-day.”

668

“But what is in that package, John?” He opened it and smiled;
“I bought a doll for Barbara.” “For Barbara! She'll be wild!
She prayed for one from Santa Claus.” “She did! Where is the child?”

Faint creak of hinges and a step, scarce heard, upon the floor;
They gazed upon the picture framed in that half-open door—
A blue-eyed, barefoot child, whose locks fell neck and shoulders o'er.

The father rose, with doll in hand, as she in gladness cries,
With joy of fruited hope that fills her eager gazing eyes—
“It's Santa Claus, an' there's my doll!” then stands in shy surprise.

“How do you know me, Barbara?” her father asked. “Ah! there!
I know you by the great fur cap that lies upon the chair,
An' that fur coat—you beau'ful doll! an' all that beard an' hair!”

The seaman caught his little child in rapture to his heart.
“Your father, dear,” the mother said, while happy teardrops start.
“Your father, back from icy seas, to never from us part!”

669

THE KITCHEN QUARREL.

A DOMESTIC APOLOGUE.

Said the Poker at the jamb to the Kettle on the hob—
“Idle thing!
While I labor at my hot and grimy job
You do nothing more than sit content and sing.
While with fiery coals I battle
There your lid you gaily rattle;
Or you go to sleep and dream,
With your nostrils breathing steam.
Pleasant work is all you do—
Ah! if I were only you!
But in this degenerate day
Merit never wins its way;
Hence you queen it, while a quiet drudge I am;
But I'll strike, if I like!”
Said the discontented Poker at the jamb.

Said the Kettle on the hob to the Poker at the jamb—
“Crusty thing!
While engaged in boiling busily I am,
Or, to give them warning, cheerily I sing;
While I clatter, hiss, or bubble,
Never grudging time or trouble,
There you idle stand and wait,
Lazy, sullen, stiff and straight;
Or, if in the embers thrust,
Ashes scattering and dust
All above, around, below,
Showing, plain as steel can show,

670

Neither willingness nor pleasure in the job;
You may strike, if you like!”
Said the pert and noisy Kettle on the hob.

Said the Mantel-shelf above to the jarring twain below—
“Silly pair!
Do you really fancy, when you quarrel so,
That the people either notice you or care?
If, your duty close pursuing,
You your talking left for doing,
Had no envy, each for each,
Some content at least you'd reach.
Go to work, and with a will;
You have each his place to fill;
Yours, the Poker, is to toil
That the Kettle quicker boil;
Yours, the Kettle, is to bear a heating sore,
Not to strike if you like!”
Said the Mantel-shelf, and then it said no more.

Then the Poker at the jamb and the Kettle on the hob
Lost their ire,
Though the Kettle gave a short, convulsive sob
As it shook itself and settled on the fire.
With the coals the Poker wrestled
Till the Kettle lower nestled,
And its spite forgotten soon,
Hummed the first notes of a tune.
Working all into a glow,
There the Poker stirred below;
'Gainst the bars it beat and rang
Till the Kettle chirped and sang;
And the goodwife said: “This is a sight to please!
Let them say what they may,
Never was there in a kitchen such as these!”

671

ODE

(NOW PAID)

TO AN ORGAN-GRINDER.

Oh! patient turner of the crank harmonic!
Ixion thou of never-ending airs!
Foe to chromatic scales and diatonic!
Indifferent to curses, deaf to prayers,
I note thee, standing on the cobble-stones,
Remorseless mangling tones and semi-tones,

Baking our Do and giving Fa a fall,
Attacking Mi and violating La,
Dispersing every Re and clouding Sol,
Stirring the Si with brown Italian paw;
Minstrel of Italy, mechanic Mario!
Of the street-opera sole empressario.

Some let their wrathful words upon thee thunder,
Bidding thee take thine organ “out of that,”
And take thyself their window-ledge from under,
And will not drop one kreuzer in thy hat—
Nay, some, to scare thee quicker from the street,
Call loud for the policeman on the beat.

But I indulge not in such verbal waste—
I have a pewter shilling, which is thine;
So take thy time—grind on—I'm not in haste,
And the policeman has gone home to dine.
(Perhaps in that I'm wrong—he may be closer—he
Is very much given to yonder corner grocery.)

672

Why dost thou vex the air with those rude sounds?
Hast thou a spite against the human race?
Has thy soul suffered from the many wounds
Given it by men of wealth and power and place?
Hast thou some rival slain and, under locks,
Fastened his wailing spirit in the box?

Wert thou a noble in thy land so sunny,
Who did some wrong to Ghibelline or Guelph?
And dost thou wander daily, less for money
Than as a punishment upon thyself?
Or toilest thou from love of gain unholy,
Pouring out discord for the coppers solely?

Cowper, the poet, though all debt despising,
Oh'd for a lodge in some vast wilderness;
Had he heard thee thus dole thy strains surprising,
He would have owed for twenty—more or less—
Ay, would have, that his hearing might be less hurt,
Voted himself a farm far in the desert.

Poor Robinson Crusoe, at his fortune grumbling,
Cast on an island far from friends and kin,
Were he, escaped, to hear this squealing, rumbling,
Tune-mangling, jangling, squeaking, shrieking din,
Would stand aghast, and hail the day a high day
Which bore him back to parrots and Man Friday.

Still turns the crank! Well, Job was patient—very!
Furunculi (um! boils) and loss of kine,
Camels and sheep and lands hereditary—
All these he felt, but not this woe of mine.
Smitten he was with many woes, good lack!
But then his ears were never on the rack.

673

Though Mistress Job henpecked him, and Eliphaz
Tormented him, he never thought to wince;
Careless of taunts from friends and such a wife as
Some few had had before, and others since.
But wert thou there thy music-mill to grind,
Then Job had been no model for mankind.

Oh! sweet Italian! wilt thou not have pity?
Thou hast been torturing me an hour or more—
Hence to some other spot within the city!
Shoulder thine organ and depart my door!
Now, this is too much! Lo! another comes!
Is there no respite for our aural drums?

And not at all deterred this seems to be
Because a rival on the spot has been:
Round goes the crank, and—fearful sight to see!
He has a woman with a tambourine,
Who leads a little monkey by a string,
And, mercy on us! she's about to sing!

POMPEY, THE FIDDLER.

And so, my black and shining fiddler,
You're sitting by yourself alone,
As still and quiet as a statue
By sculptor wrought from ebon stone.
You nothing know of this same riddle
Which puts all thinking men in pain;
So rosin your bow and tune your fiddle,
And play us “Money Musk” again.

674

There was a time, my dark musician,
When statesmen only ruled the land,
And men were spurned who strove to meddle
With things they could not understand.
The times have changed—there lies the riddle
Which many seek to solve in vain;
Then rosin your bow and tune your fiddle,
And play us “Money Musk” again.

There was a time when good men only
Could high positions hope to win,
When men of courtesy held office;
Now, Holt and Stanton both are in.
Are people dogs? That is a riddle
Which, Pompey, you can not explain;
So rosin your bow and tune your fiddle,
And give us “Money Musk” again.

There was a time the Constitution
Was held to be the law supreme;
That men in power would trample on it
We did not even dare to dream.
They do it, though; and that's a riddle
That serves to rack the coolest brain;
But rosin your bow and tune your fiddle,
And play us “Money Musk” again.

There was a time when by the ballot,
And not by bayonets, rulers came;
Who in those days would strive for honors,
By force or fraud, would come to shame.
Cowards are tyrants. That's no riddle;
A statement only, true and plain;
So rosin your bow and tune your fiddle,
And play us “Money Musk” again.

675

There was a time when law was potent,
And tyrants by the land abhorred;
Now shoulder-straps replace the ermine,
And judges bow before the sword.
Has God—and that's a startling riddle—
Sent civil war as Freedom's bane?
Bah! rosin your bow and tune your fiddle,
And play us “Money Musk” again.

THE HUNDREDTH YEAR.

The grandeur of Old England,
What time in olden days
She had not sunk her dominance
In money-getting ways—
The glory of the land of France
Before, by pride and sin,
That royal-tiger heart of hers
The cancer entered in—
The honest heart of Germany,
Ere lust of land and power
Brought peril to the unity,
The fungus of an hour—
The dauntless pluck of Ireland
That held it undismayed
Till discord and the bigot's hate
The land to shame betrayed—
The stately chivalry of Spain,
Ere shameless women came
To fill with rottenness the realm,
And smirch its name and fame—

676

All these and more than these be thine,
Our country near and dear,
To add new honor to the land,
In this, thy hundredth year.

Alas! the purpose sordid
That pulls Old England down,
That sinks the peasant lower yet,
And tarnishes the crown—
The pride and sins that France degrade;
(Some sins too foul to speak)
That taint the body-politic,
And make the spirit weak—
The lust of sway and greed of soil
That lets no neighbor rest,
And fills the heart of Germany
With eagerness unblest—
The hate of warring sectaries,
The avarice mean and low,
That sold the country's life for gold,
And Ireland brought to woe—
The lust, the falsehood and intrigue
By woman vile and vain,
The wiles of politicians base
That wrought the fall of Spain—
All these, and even more than these,
Find ready lodgment here,
And with their poison fill thy veins
In this, thy hundredth year.

Arouse from sleep our country,
And purge thyself to-day;
From the seething caldron of thy life
Cast scum and froth away;
The robbers who assume to rule,
And make thy chiefest woes,

677

Whose actions taint thy history,
With vengeful hand depose;
Ere they may cover thee and thine
With universal scorn,
Make them to rue with grief and shame
The hour when they were born;
Drive hence the money-buccaneers,
Combined with purpose fell,
Whose god is greed, whose heaven is gain,
Whose faith is born of hell;
The sense of duty, keen and strong,
That marked our sires, restore;
Truth, firmness, honesty, and right
Bring to the front once more:
Do this, and so disperse the cloud
Stooping so darkly near,
Or feel thy sure decay begun
In this, thy hundredth year.

MONTGOMERY AT QUEBEC.

“Victor I will remain,
Or on the earth be slain;
Never shall she sustain
Loss to redeem me.”
Dayton's “Agincourt.”

Spake the old soldier there,
He with the silver hair,
When his granddaughter fair
Asked with eyes glistening,
How 'twas Montgomery died,
And his arm-chair beside,
Open-mouthed, staring-eyed,
Stood her boys listening.

678

“Ah! I remember well,
How in the fight he fell;
Memory the tale to tell
Little I miss in age—
I, though a stripling then,
Serving as one of ten
Poorly armed minute-men
Raised in the vicinage.

“Keeping our heart and eyes
Fixed on our enterprise,
Ready to sacrifice
Ease or life willingly,
Famished and woe-begone,
Marching at peep o' dawn,
Where the storm sweeping on
Smote our forms chillingly.

“Then ere the morning light
Climbing the rocky height,
Feeling no dastard fright
At their outnumbering,
Ranged on the plain we stood,
Near where in watchful mood—
Grim was their quietude—
Foemen unslumbering.

“Idle our work and sad,
With the poor tools we had—
Six-pounders old and bad,
Iron pellets scattering;
Vainly our weak attack
Fell on the ramparts black;
Fierce came their volleys back,
Riving and shattering.

679

“Sternly our leader calls:
‘Useless the cannon-balls!
Forward to scale the walls!
Follow me steadily!
Then to the Prescott Gate,
Where the foe lay in wait,
Pressing to meet our fate,
On we swept readily.

“Soon through the driving snow
Saw we a block-house low,
Seeming in fog to flow,
Ghost-like and quivering,
Whence the foe, roused to ire,
Poured forth their battle-fire,
Bearing destruction dire,
Death-bolts delivering.

“Down fell our leader then,
Never to rise again;
Lost was the battle when
He lost control of it:
All that we would have done,
All that we might have won,
Shrunk to a skeleton;
Fled was the soul of it!”

Then the granddaughter said,
Bowing in grief her head,
While the quick tears she shed
Coursed her cheeks mournfully:
“Ah! that in all his pride
Thus the young hero died!”
But the old soldier cried,
Sternly and scornfully:

680

“Weep not for him to-day!
Better thus pass away
Than a base part to play
Here in life's mummery.
Better when duty calls
Fall as a hero falls,
As at the city walls
Fell our Montgomery!”

THE DISPUTE OF THE HAMMERS.

While the bellows roared I listened, as the hammer-clink and clang,
In their triple-measured metre, on the sullen anvil rang;
And I heard amid the clamor, disputation which, of two,
Was the foremost in position, and had power the most to do.

Quoth the great sledge-hammer, gruffly—“You esteem me dull and coarse;
What would be the skill you boast of, if you lacked my power and force?
But for blows I strike incessant, in a ponderous, steady storm,
With your vaunted skilful labor, you would shape no useful form.”

Said the little hammer, pertly—“Give your idle boasting o'er;
In our craft I do the shaping, you the pounding—nothing more.
But for me the iron were shapeless under useless blows you rain:
Yours the aimless work of muscle: mine the thoughtful work of brain.”

681

So they wrangled till the anvil, lying patient, dull and black,
To the boasting of the hammers, sullen muttered answer back—
“Ye are neither one the better, since to all the truth is plain:
Brain must ever call on muscle; muscle be in debt to brain.”

As it spoke I left the stithy, but a lesson thence I bore,
And it filled me with a knowledge I had never had before;
'Twas the anvil's words dogmatic forced my mind to understand
How complete was this connection of the work of brain and hand.

For the farmer with his acres, and the workman with his tools,
Have as much to use their reason as the bookmen of the schools;
And the thinker in his closet who consumes the midnight oil,
Like the farmer and mechanic, has to win his way by toil.

One is weak without the other; with each other both are strong;
Dwarfs apart, together giants, potent foes to fraud and wrong;
Hand in hand I see them marching through the coming golden years,
Rivals never, true companions, in their state and station peers.

682

AFTER ONE HUNDRED YEARS.

April 30, 1889.

Day when these States came together,
Never to sever and part,
Greet it with hand-grasp and welcome,
Greet it with gladness of heart;
Day when our dear mother country
Wedded her freedom to law,
Greet it with waving of banners,
Greet it with joyous hurrah;
Day of a union grown stronger
After this hundred of years,
Greet it with pageant and feasting,
Greet it with music and cheers.

Deft were the hands of the founders
After the war had been fought;
Matchless the patience and foresight
Shown in the work which they wrought;
Theirs was a care for the future
Marvellous growth of the land,
Founding the house on the bed rock,
Not on the movable sand;
Theirs was the practical wisdom,
Flexible making their plan—
That which was made for the infant
Fitting itself to the man.

What if the wiseacres round us
Tell us the fabric must fall,
Honeycombed through with corruption,
Piercing and rottening all?

683

What if they say party madness,
Sapping the strength of the frame,
Makes us the prey of the vilest,
Freemen alone in the name?
What if these prophets of ruin
Say we shall go like the rest,
Sink like the olden republics,
We, the free States of the West?

Greed and corruption! Why, these are
Growing as rankly elsewhere;
Must not exuberant vigor
Breed of such vices a share?
That shall not hamper our future
Which has not hindered the past;
Ballots, if handled by freemen,
Slay, when at parasites cast.
'Tis the mere scum on the caldron
Forced to the top by the heat;
Lieth the great mass beneath it,
Limpid and sparkling and sweet.

Party! Ah, woe to that country,
Land where no citizen cares
Who may ascend to the summit,
Who have control of affairs;
Better the rivulet's brawling
Than the dull pool and its scum;
Better the noisy complaining
Than the conspiracy dumb.
Clearing the water by motion,
Letting in light of the sun,
Partisan strife is the streamlet—
Long may it noisily run.

684

Faults has the land that we live in—
So all her foemen agree;
Blind to her freedom and virtues,
Blind let these slanderers be.
But the broad blaze of her glory
Proudly each one of us sees
Here, while the flag of the rainbow
Ripples its stripes in the breeze;
Here, while the strong living torrent
Pours in a flood through the street;
Here, while to heart-throb and drum-beat
March the ten thousands of feet.

So to thy twice golden wedding,
Dear mother country of ours,
Come we with music and feasting,
Come with the leaves and the flowers.
Seated as equals at table,
Under one roof-tree secure,
Here are the high-bred and lowly,
Here are the rich and the poor;
Here with the lights and the laughter,
Here with the music and wine—
Each is the peer of his neighbor,
All are true children of thine.

CONTENT.

Of all the riches great
Which men accumulate,
Or gold, or jewels rare,
Or acres broad and fair,

685

One treasure far surpasses
The heap which greed amasses;
Surest our needs to meet,
And make our life complete,
Safer than bonds or rent—
The gem they call Content.

If that be in his keep,
A man may dreamless sleep,
Quiet his days and nights;
No care his soul affrights;
No worriment perplexes;
No vain ambition vexes;
Who drops or holds the crown,
Which side is up or down,
Is scarcely an event,
And mars not his Content.

The peat-hut on the shore
Of rocky Labrador,
Or cabin rude, which stands
Upon the bottom lands
Somewhere in Western valleys—
In either is a palace
Fair built and furnished well;
And, should he in it dwell,
It glows magnificent,
Gilded by his Content.

They do not vex his eye,
The rich who pass him by;
Their coaches past him roll,
But trouble not his soul;
Not his the loud complaint is
That others feed on dainties,

686

While on his board are spread
His frugal cheese and bread;
For fate to him has sent
Its richest sauce, Content.

Ah! happy is his lot
Who others envies not,
Who never is opprest
By longing or unrest;
But, still his duty doing,
His even way pursuing,
Bears patiently what load
Is his upon the road,
And, after life well spent,
Meets death with calm Content.

THE STRIFE OF BROTHERS.

[_]

Occasional Poem. Written for and read at the celebration at park Hall, Newark, July 4, 1879.

Our people and our town do not belong
To a past age in history, art, or song.
There are no relics here for later man
To touch with wonder or with awe to scan;
Here through no gloomy crypt nor trackless street,
The traveller wanders with uncertain feet;
No lizard frolics here on moss-grown stones;
No morning breeze through splintered columns moans;
No crumbling fanes betray where ages past
To fabled gods rich offerings were cast;
No shapeless ruins to the eye appear—
Nor Thebes, nor Tadmore, nor Palmyra here.

687

Nor is it of that modern outgrowth where,
Packed in close dens, men's breaths pollute the air,
Where moored in safety to the piers and slips,
Rise on the tide and fall a thousand ships;
Within whose harbor, hurrying to and fro,
On tireless wheels a hundred steamers go;
Where in each warehouse, crammed from roof to floor,
The choicest goods of every clime they store;
Within whose streets, vast human rivers those,
A surging current ever ebbs and flows;
Where Wealth and Poverty walk side by side,
And Wrong beards Right, nor strives its face to hide;
But a live city where the workers come
To fill each human hive with buzz and hum;
City where Industry takes highest state,
Where Skill weds Labor, and where both create;
And inland city where, with Honest Gain,
Patience and Enterprise combine to reign;
A noble city of sublime unrest,
Imperial workshop of the busy West,
Whose trust within her industry is placed,
Whose coming greatness on her labor based.
Science shall bridge her rivers: on the land
Modes of swift transit show on every hand;
Her streets shall lengthen and her borders swell,
And countless thousands in her limits dwell;
Here Art its choicest masterpiece create,
Here Toil grow noble and the People great;
Here Piety its votive fanes shall raise
Where even Greed may pause to pray and praise;
No wrong or wretchedness be with us then,
All men be honest—even if Aldermen;
And this through work: the city pauses not
For other methods; eager, fierce, and hot
To win most wealth before that certain hour

688

When her, like others, Ruin shall devour,
She has no time to spare for sentiment,
Her vision solely on the muck-rake bent,
And not the crown above. And yet, to-day,
Manhood and age as well as children play;
The hammer-clink, the whirring of the mill,
All sounds of labor for the time are still;
Faces around us lose all trace of care,
Flags kiss the breeze and music thrills the air;
Smoothed are the wrinkles on each knitted brow—
Greed for another day, but gladness now.

Some powerful cause for this beneath must lie;
Listen my story: that shall tell you why.

Once in Argeia, in the olden day,
Four brothers were, whose mystic names, they say,
Born of the musical Hellenic speech,
Clearly conveyed the origin of each.
Arktos had lands and ships, and wealth untold;
Zochos had flocks and herds, and mines of gold;
Notos grew plants whose fibres Eos wove,
And one by growing, one by weaving, throve.
Much the four prospered; wide on either hand
Spread their possessions till they held the land.
Now, whether it were jealousy or greed,
If wives made strife or Zeus had so decreed,
It boots not; little now is known to men
How first the feud was made, or why, or when—
They bickered first, each on each other prest,
Then Notos fiercely warred with all the rest.
Brave as he was, they, too, had come of stock
Whose force was whirlwind and whose firmness rock;
And to their triple power compelled to yield,
Notos, o'ercome, lay prone upon the field.
His brothers raised him where he prostrate lay,
And bound his wounds: but in contemptuous way,

689

Mingling their taunts with his defiant speech,
Till hatred festered in the heart of each.
Friends would have reconciled the foes; but they
Drove intercessors angrily away,
And by their wrath gave promise to all men
The brothers ne'er would brothers be again.
And yet, even while the world around them said
All old-time fondness of the four was dead,
Astounding change! each tender in his mood,
In all men's sight warm friends the brothers stood;
Kind looks, kind words, and kinder deeds replaced
The savage hate that erst their lives disgraced,
And stronger burned the new rekindled flame
Than that which through their birth and kinship came.
“How came this change about?” the question rose;
“What made you friends to-day who late were foes?”
“The birthday of our mother,” Arktos said,
“To honor that we four were hither led:
And hate expires and angry passions rest
When meet true men who suckled at one breast.
Within our veins the blood she gave us runs;
Her gentle spirit smiles upon her sons;
And, coming thus to fitly honor her,
We feel our hearts with tender memories stir.
Our strife is dead; we urn its ashes here
Upon the birthday of our mother dear;
Whate'er the past, the future shall be free.”

As did those Argive brothers, so do we:
Our mother is our country! Whatsoe'er
Has rankled in our hearts from thence we tear,
Bid the dead past bury its dead; true man
Can in the patriot sink the partisan.
Pride, passion, greed, the party spirit strong,
The fancied grievance and the real wrong,
The petty feelings that in man arise—

690

All these we on the altar sacrifice,
And here, as in a temple, hand in hand,
Heart linked to heart, true friends and kinsfolk stand.

'Tis honest pride of race bids us rejoice,
For history seeks in no uncertain voice
What part our fathers in the struggle took
When England's empire at our cannon shook.
They scorn our State, or they affect to scorn,
Some few of those beyond our borders born;
Sneer at the unbroken faith our annals show
Kept in our dealing with both friend and foe;
Contemn the thrift and skill that made our sands
Of greater value than their fertile lands;
Decry our justice as too harsh because
On rich or poor impartial fall our laws.
So let them; but even they dare not refuse
Tribute of honor to our Jersey Blues
Who in the past, on every battle-plain
From Maine to Georgia, poured their blood like rain.
They cannot blot the record out that shows
The well-known words round which a halo glows.
There flows Assanpink; yonder, Monmouth's plain
Spreads green before us, fertile with its slain;
There Trenton rises, where our fortune first
Turned to the flood, when at its ebb the worst;
There Princeton, too, whose college folk may see
Where startled Britons took their first degree;
There is the Tory block-house on the ridge,
There Paulus Hoek, Red Bank, and Quinton's Bridge,
And all combine to keep her laurels green
Who did her duty to the old Thirteen,
And who has stood, through sunshine and through storm,
True to the Union that she helped to form.

O grand old State! land of our fathers! there
The very skies seem bluer than elsewhere,

691

The trees far greener, and a tenderer grey
On the mossed rocks where noontide shadows play;
The faults (and those there are) that mark thy race
A thousand virtues balance and efface.
Thou hast kept well the plain and honest way
And homely wisdom of thy early day;
Held evermore thy courts of justice pure;
And, slow in step, yet made thy progress sure.
Less showy than thy neighbors, not less proud,
No wrong in thee with shame thy people bowed;
And while grass grows, and while the water runs,
Where'er their wandering footsteps fall, thy sons,
Living, thy champions true and staunch shall be,
And, dying, turn their fondest thoughts to thee!

THE IRISH FAMINE.

[_]

Occasional Lines. Written, and read before the citizens of Newark, March 17, 1880, at the Irish Aid Entertainment.

This is our country—though there courses through
My arteries Irish blood, my country, too:
A land that gives her children equal voice
If they be sons by accident or choice;
A land whose laws permit the men of toil
To own in fee, as well as till the soil;
A land, however fierce for gain she press,
Feels her heart melt at other lands' distress.
If, since I knew so well her real worth,
I held her dearest of all lands of earth,
And prized my birthright as a rarer gem
Than glitters on a monarch's diadem,

692

Even while I censured faults, how more to-day
Should I, her son, my filial homage pay?
The wolf of want has left the poor man's door:
Full-handed Plenty scatters golden store;
His task again the busy craftsman plies;
Again in street and lane new dwellings rise;
The hammers in the workshops clink once more,
Clatter the mills, the furnace chimneys roar;
Through every channel industry has made
Flows the swift current of reviving trade;
Again resumes the absolute sway of greed.
And yet, at murmur of a human need
Three thousand miles away, the faint, low cry:
“Gaunt famine strikes us!—aid us, or we die!”
A people's feeling to its depth is stirred,
The quick heart answers what the ear has heard;
And, as the generous impulse shakes the land,
To the warm heart responds the liberal hand.
O blessed country! seeking not to know
The why or wherefore, but the fact of woe;
Not hers to ask what narrow spot of earth
The man who suffers claims as place of birth;
Not hers to seek what his relief may be—
If led by Christ, or following Confutzee.
Enough, while she prosperity enjoys,
That fire makes homeless, pestilence destroys,
Cold summer rains the lagging harvest blights,
And pitiless famine countless thousands smites;
The Moses of her pity deals the stroke—
The fountain gushes where the rock is broke.
No creed, no birthplace can her purpose ban,
She owns in full the brotherhood of man;
Draws, without counting, from her hard-won gains,
And gives and gives, so long as need remains.

693

Springs our warm zeal, in this the hour of woe,
From kindred currents through our veins that flow?
Is it because in this, our mingled race,
Nine millions their descent from Ireland trace?
Not needed that our heart of hearts to win—
When famine strikes, all human kind are kin.
Is it that in the early day when we
Fought the long fight that kept a people free,
So many Irish joined the patriot band—
Barry at sea, Montgomery on the land,
Thornton in Congress—Irish everywhere—
That chance was given for men to do and dare?
Why, no! it is enough their deeds to tell;
They did their duty, and they did it well.
Is it that at the hour our army lay,
By famine melting bit by bit away,
Twelve Irish merchants gold to Morris gave—
Ten thousand pounds—in time our force to save?
Those men had found their country on this shore;
They did their duty, and they did no more.
'Tis not that ties of kindred hold their sway,
Or gratitude, that brings you here to-day.
You are not Irish all by blood and birth;
There are men here from many lands of earth—
The Yankee grasps the Scotsman by the hand,
And here the Germans by the Irish stand.
No selfish motives move; but pity warm
And generous impulse take the heart by storm;
All of one land, if need for action call,
For boundary lines at human misery fall.

Have we not had our days of trouble, too?
In our weak youth, ere we to greatness grew,
Two centuries since, in Massachusetts, there

694

Rose from the land the wailing of despair.
The crops were smitten by drought, the harvest failed,
Disease struck many, famine all assailed;
There was no food for even wealth to buy,
And rich and poor alike lay down to die.
They heard the news in Ireland. Not their way
To let their purpose dull by long delay.
The generous Irish heart was stirred to save;
The generous Irish hand unclosed and gave.
With every inch of space from plank to keel,
Packed close with Irish meat and Irish meal,
With Irish tars to guide her o'er the sea,
The good ship Katharine sailed from Dublin quay;
Her welcome cargo reached this Western shore,
And famine vexed the rescued land no more.
The bread they cast upon the waters then,
Be it ours to send it tenfold back again;
Each crumb become a loaf! And let them get
A generous usury when we pay our debt!

University of Virginia Library

MISCELLANEOUS.

THE THREE KINGS.