University of Virginia Library

TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

TO GIVE YOUR NAME AN HONOR I WERE FAIN,
BUT—THOUGH WITH A RICH WILL—I ONLY MAKE
MY POOR DEED PROUD BEARING YOUR NAME IN VAIN:
I CANNOT GIVE THE HONOR THAT I TAKE.

I.

A MIRAGE OF THE WEST.

Above the sunken sun the clouds are fired
With a dark splendor: the enchanted hour
Works momentary miracles in the sky;
Weird shadows take from fancy what they lack
For semblance, and I see a boundless plain,
A mist of sun and sheaves in boundless air,
Gigantic shapes of Reapers moving slow
In some new harvest: so I can but dream
Of my great Land, that takes its Morning star
Out of the dusky Evening of the East,
My Land, that lifted into vision gleams
Misty and vast, a boundless plain afar,
(Like yonder fading fantasy of cloud,)
With shadowy Reapers moving, vague and slow,
In some wide harvest of the days to be—
A mist of sun and sheaves in boundless air!

Benjamin M. Piatt.

Ob. April 20, 1863—Æt. 84.

Near his loved home, among familiar flowers,
(Whose memories mingle fragrant breath with ours,)
Sleeps a gray father of the mighty West.
His hands had Nature's plea for folded rest:
For, through long years and manhood's noble strife,
Whiten'd his head above his golden life.
He pass'd as one who from his harvest goes,
Attended by the sun, to his repose—
Gracious and good. Behold his simple fame:
He lies asleep beneath his honor'd name.