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SONGS OF WELCOME AND FAREWELL

AMERICA TO RUSSIA

AUGUST 5, 1866

[_]

Read by Hon. G. V. Fox at a dinner given to the Mission from the United States, St. Peterburg.

Though watery deserts hold apart
The worlds of East and West,
Still beats the selfsame human heart
In each proud Nation's breast.
Our floating turret tempts the main
And dares the howling blast
To clasp more close the golden chain
That long has bound them fast.
In vain the gales of ocean sweep,
In vain the billows roar
That chafe the wild and stormy steep
Of storied Elsinore.
She comes! She comes! her banners dip
In Neva's flashing tide,
With greetings on her cannon's lip,
The storm-god's iron bride!
Peace garlands with the olive-bough
Her thunder-bearing tower,
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And plants before her cleaving prow
The sea-foam's milk-white flower.
No prairies heaped their garnered store
To fill her sunless hold,
Not rich Nevada's gleaming ore
Its hidden caves infold,
But lightly as the sea-bird swings
She floats the depths above,
A breath of flame to lend her wings,
Her freight a people's love!
When darkness hid the starry skies
In war's long winter night,
One ray still cheered our straining eyes,
The far-off Northern light!
And now the friendly rays return
From lights that glow afar,
Those clustered lamps of Heaven that burn
Around the Western Star.
A nation's love in tears and smiles
We bear across the sea,
O Neva of the banded isles,
We moor our hearts in thee!

WELCOME TO THE GRAND DUKE ALEXIS

MUSIC HALL, DECEMBER 6, 1871
[_]

Sung to the Russian national air by the children of the public schools.

Shadowed so long by the storm-cloud of danger,
Thou whom the prayers of an empire defend,
Welcome, thrice welcome! but not as a stranger,
Come to the nation that calls thee its friend!
Bleak are our shores with the blasts of December,
Fettered and chill is the rivulet's flow;
Throbbing and warm are the hearts that remember
Who was our friend when the world was our foe.
Look on the lips that are smiling to greet thee,
See the fresh flowers that a people has strewn:
Count them thy sisters and brothers that meet thee;
Guest of the Nation, her heart is thine own!
Fires of the North, in eternal communion,
Blend your broad flashes with evening's bright star!
God bless the Empire that loves the Great Union;
Strength to her people! Long life to the Czar!

AT THE BANQUET TO THE GRAND DUKE ALEXIS

DECEMBER 9, 1871

One word to the guest we have gathered to greet!
The echoes are longing that word to repeat,—
It springs to the lips that are waiting to part,
For its syllables spell themselves first in the heart.
Its accents may vary, its sound may be strange,
But it bears a kind message that nothing can change;
The dwellers by Neva its meaning can tell,
For the smile, its interpreter, shows it full well.
That word! How it gladdened the Pilgrim of yore
As he stood in the snow on the desolate shore!
When the shout of the sagamore startled his ear
In the phrase of the Saxon, 't was music to hear!
Ah, little could Samoset offer our sire,—
The cabin, the corn-cake, the seat by the fire;
He had nothing to give,—the poor lord of the land,—
But he gave him a Welcome,—his heart in his hand!
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The tribe of the sachem has melted away,
But the word that he spoke is remembered to-day,
And the page that is red with the record of shame
The tear-drops have whitened round Samoset's name.
The word that he spoke to the Pilgrim of old
May sound like a tale that has often been told;
But the welcome we speak is as fresh as the dew,—
As the kiss of a lover, that always is new!
Ay, Guest of the Nation! each roof is thine own
Through all the broad continent's star-bannered zone;
From the shore where the curtain of morn is uprolled,
To the billows that flow through the gateway of gold.
The snow-crested mountains are calling aloud;
Nevada to Ural speaks out of the cloud,
And Shasta shouts forth, from his throne in the sky,
To the storm-splintered summits, the peaks of Altai!
You must leave him, they say, till the summer is green!
Both shores are his home, though the waves roll between;
And then we'll return him, with thanks for the same,
As fresh and as smiling and tall as he came.
But ours is the region of arctic delight;
We can show him auroras and pole-stars by night;
There's a Muscovy sting in the ice-tempered air,
And our firesides are warm and our maidens are fair.
The flowers are full-blown in the garlanded hall,—
They will bloom round his footsteps wherever they fall;
For the splendors of youth and the sunshine they bring
Make the roses believe 't is the summons of Spring.
One word of our language he needs must know well,
But another remains that is harder to spell;
We shall speak it so ill, if he wishes to learn
How we utter Farewell, he will have to return!

AT THE BANQUET TO THE CHINESE EMBASSY

AUGUST 21, 1868

Brothers, whom we may not reach
Through the veil of alien speech,
Welcome! welcome! eyes can tell
What the lips in vain would spell,—
Words that hearts can understand,
Brothers from the Flowery Land!
We, the evening's latest born,
Hail the children of the morn!
We, the new creation's birth,
Greet the lords of ancient earth,
From their storied walls and towers
Wandering to these tents of ours!
Land of wonders, fair Cathay,
Who long hast shunned the staring day,
Hid in mists of poet's dreams
By thy blue and yellow streams,—
Let us thy shadowed form behold,—
Teach us as thou didst of old.
Knowledge dwells with length of days;
Wisdom walks in ancient ways:
Thine the compass that could guide
A nation o'er the stormy tide,
Scourged by passions, doubts, and fears,
Safe through thrice a thousand years!
Looking from thy turrets gray
Thou hast seen the world's decay,—
Egypt drowning in her sands,—
Athens rent by robbers' hands,—
Rome, the wild barbarian's prey,
Like a storm-cloud swept away:
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Looking from thy turrets gray
Still we see thee. Where are they?
And lo! a new-born nation waits,
Sitting at the golden gates
That glitter by the sunset sea,—
Waits with outspread arms for thee!
Open wide, ye gates of gold,
To the Dragon's banner-fold!
Builders of the mighty wall,
Bid your mountain barriers fall!
So may the girdle of the sun
Bind the East and West in one,
Till Mount Shasta's breezes fan
The snowy peaks of Ta Sieue-Shan,—
Till Erie blends its waters blue
With the waves of Tung-Ting-Hu,—
Till deep Missouri lends its flow
To swell the rushing Hoang-Ho!

AT THE BANQUET TO THE JAPANESE EMBASSY

AUGUST 2, 1872

We welcome you, Lords of the Land of the Sun!
The voice of the many sounds feebly through one;
Ah! would 't were a voice of more musical tone,
But the dog-star is here, and the song-birds have flown.
And what shall I sing that can cheat you of smiles,
Ye heralds of peace from the Orient isles?
If only the Jubilee—Why did you wait?
You are welcome, but oh! you 're a little too late!
We have greeted our brothers of Ireland and France,
Round the fiddle of Strauss we have joined in the dance,
We have lagered Herr Saro, that fine-looking man,
And glorified Godfrey, whose name it is Dan.
What a pity! we 've missed it and you've missed it too,
We had a day ready and waiting for you;
We'd have shown you—provided, of course, you had come—
You'd have heard—no, you would n't, because it was dumb.
And then the great organ! The chorus's shout!
Like the mixture teetotalers call “Cold without”—
A mingling of elements, strong, but not sweet;
And the drum, just referred to, that “could n't be beat.”
The shrines of our pilgrims are not like your own,
Where white Fusiyama lifts proudly its cone,
(The snow-mantled mountain we see on the fan
That cools our hot cheeks with a breeze from Japan.)
But ours the wide temple where worship is free
As the wind of the prairie, the wave of the sea;
You may build your own altar wherever you will,
For the roof of that temple is over you still.
One dome overarches the star-bannered shore;
You may enter the Pope's or the Puritan's door,
Or pass with the Buddhist his gateway of bronze,
For a priest is but Man, be he bishop or bonze.
And the lesson we teach with the sword and the pen
Is to all of God's children, “We also are men!
If you wrong us we smart, if you prick us we bleed,
If you love us, no quarrel with color or creed!”
You 'll find us a well-meaning, free-spoken crowd,
Good-natured enough, but a little too loud,—
To be sure, there is always a bit of a row
When we choose our Tycoon, and especially now.
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You'll take it all calmly,—we want you to see
What a peaceable fight such a contest can be,
And of one thing be certain, however it ends,
You will find that our voters have chosen your friends.
If the horse that stands saddled is first in the race,
You will greet your old friend with the weed in his face;
And if the white hat and the White House agree,
You'll find H. G. really as loving as he.
But oh, what a pity—once more I must say—
That we could not have joined in a “Japanese day”!
Such greeting we give you to-night as we can;
Long life to our brothers and friends of Japan!
The Lord of the mountain looks down from his crest
As the banner of morning unfurls in the West;
The Eagle was always the friend of the Sun;
You are welcome!—The song of the cagebird is done.

BRYANT'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY

NOVEMBER 3, 1864

O even-handed Nature! we confess
This life that men so honor, love, and bless
Has filled thine olden measure. Not the less
We count the precious seasons that remain;
Strike not the level of the golden grain,
But heap it high with years, that earth may gain
What heaven can lose,—for heaven is rich in song:
Do not all poets, dying, still prolong
Their broken chants amid the seraph throng,
Where, blind no more, Ionia's bard is seen,
And England's heavenly minstrel sits between
The Mantuan and the wan-cheeked Florentine?
This was the first sweet singer in the cage
Of our close-woven life. A new-born age
Claims in his vesper song its heritage:
Spare us, oh spare us long our heart's desire!
Moloch, who calls our children through the fire,
Leaves us the gentle master of the lyre.
We count not on the dial of the sun
The hours, the minutes, that his sands have run;
Rather, as on those flowers that one by one
From earliest dawn their ordered bloom display
Till evening's planet with her guiding ray
Leads in the blind old mother of the day,
We reckon by his songs, each song a flower,
The long, long daylight, numbering hour by hour,
Each breathing sweetness like a bridal bower.
His morning glory shall we e'er forget?
His noontide's full-blown lily coronet?
His evening primrose has not opened yet;
Nay, even if creeping Time should hide the skies
In midnight from his century-laden eyes,
Darkened like his who sang of Paradise,
Would not some hidden song-bud open bright
As the resplendent cactus of the night
That floods the gloom with fragrance and with light?
How can we praise the verse whose music flows
With solemn cadence and majestic close,
Pure as the dew that filters through the rose?
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How shall we thank him that in evil days
He faltered never,—nor for blame, nor praise,
Nor hire, nor party, shamed his earlier lays?
But as his boyhood was of manliest hue,
So to his youth his manly years were true,
All dyed in royal purple through and through!
He for whose touch the lyre of Heaven is strung
Needs not the flattering toil of mortal tongue:
Let not the singer grieve to die unsung!
Marbles forget their message to mankind:
In his own verse the poet still we find,
In his own page his memory lives enshrined,
As in their amber sweets the smothered bees,—
As the fair cedar, fallen before the breeze,
Lies self-embalmed amidst the mouldering trees.
Poets, like youngest children, never grow
Out of their mother's fondness. Nature so
Holds their soft hands, and will not let them go,
Till at the last they track with even feet
Her rhythmic footsteps, and their pulses beat
Twinned with her pulses, and their lips repeat
The secrets she has told them, as their own:
Thus is the inmost soul of Nature known,
And the rapt minstrel shares her awful throne!
O lover of her mountains and her woods,
Her bridal chamber's leafy solitudes,
Where Love himself with tremulous step intrudes,
Her snows fall harmless on thy sacred fire:
Far be the day that claims thy sounding lyre
To join the music of the angel choir!
Yet, since life's amplest measure must be filled,
Since throbbing hearts must be forever stilled,
And all must fade that evening sunsets gild,
Grant, Father, ere he close the mortal eyes
That see a Nation's reeking sacrifice,
Its smoke may vanish from these blackened skies!
Then, when his summons comes, since come it must,
And, looking heavenward with unfaltering trust,
He wraps his drapery round him for the dust,
His last fond glance will show him o'er his head
The Northern fires beyond the zenith spread
In lambent glory, blue and white and red,—
The Southern cross without its bleeding load,
The milky way of peace all freshly strowed,
And every white-throned star fixed in its lost abode!

A FAREWELL TO AGASSIZ

[_]

[Written on the eve of Agassiz's journey to Brazil in 1865.]

How the mountains talked together,
Looking down upon the weather,
When they heard our friend had planned his
Little trip among the Andes!
How they'll bare their snowy scalps
To the climber of the Alps
When the cry goes through their passes,
“Here comes the great Agassiz!”
“Yes, I'm tall,” says Chimborazo,
“But I wait for him to say so,—
That's the only thing that lacks,—he
Must see me, Cotopaxi!”
“Ay! ay!” the fire-peak thunders,
“And he must view my wonders!
I'm but a lonely crater
Till I have him for spectator!”
The mountain hearts are yearning,
The lava-torches burning,
The rivers bend to meet him,
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The forests bow to greet him,
It thrills the spinal column
Of fossil fishes solemn,
And glaciers crawl the faster
To the feet of their old master!
Heaven keep him well and hearty,
Both him and all his party!
From the sun that broils and smites,
From the centipede that bites,
From the hail-storm and the thunder,
From the vampire and the condor,
From the gust upon the river,
From the sudden earthquake shiver,
From the trip of mule or donkey,
From the midnight howling monkey,
From the stroke of knife or dagger,
From the puma and the jaguar,
From the horrid boa-constrictor
That has scared us in the pictur',
From the Indians of the Pampas
Who would dine upon their grampas,
From every beast and vermin
That to think of sets us squirmin',
From every snake that tries on
The traveller his p'ison,
From every pest of Natur',
Likewise the alligator,
And from two things left behind him,—
(Be sure they 'll try to find him,)
The tax-bill and assessor,—
Heaven keep the great Professor!
May he find, with his apostles,
That the land is full of fossils,
That the waters swarm with fishes
Shaped according to his wishes,
That every pool is fertile
In fancy kinds of turtle,
New birds around him singing,
New insects, never stinging,
With a million novel data
About the articulata,
And facts that strip off all husks
From the history of mollusks.
And when, with loud Te Deum,
He returns to his Museum,
May he find the monstrous reptile
That so long the land has kept ill
By Grant and Sherman throttled,
And by Father Abraham bottled,
(All specked and streaked and mottled
With the scars of murderous battles,
Where he clashed the iron rattles
That gods and men he shook at,)
For all the world to look at!
God bless the great Professor!
And Madam, too, God bless her!
Bless him and all his band,
On the sea and on the land,
Bless them head and heart and hand,
Till their glorious raid is o'er,
And they touch our ransomed shore!
Then the welcome of a nation,
With its shout of exultation,
Shall awake the dumb creation,
And the shapes of buried æons
Join the living creature's pæans,
Till the fossil echoes roar;
While the mighty megalosaurus
Leads the palæozoic chorus,—
God bless the great Professor,
And the land his proud possessor,—
Bless them now and evermore!

AT A DINNER TO ADMIRAL FARRAGUT

JULY 6, 1865

Now, smiling friends and shipmates all,
Since half our battle 's won,
A broadside for our Admiral!
Load every crystal gun!
Stand ready till I give the word,—
You won't have time to tire,—
And when that glorious name is heard,
Then hip! hurrah! and fire!
Bow foremost sinks the rebel craft,—
Our eyes not sadly turn
And see the pirates huddling aft
To drop their raft astern;
Soon o'er the sea-worm's destined prey
The lifted wave shall close,—
So perish from the face of day
All Freedom's banded foes!
But ah! what splendors fire the sky!
What glories greet the morn!
The storm-tost banner streams on high,
Its heavenly hues new-born!
Its red fresh dyed in heroes' blood,
Its peaceful white more pure,
To float unstained o'er field and flood
While earth and seas endure!
All shapes before the driving blast
Must glide from mortal view:
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Black roll the billows of the past
Behind the present's blue,
Fast, fast, are lessening in the light
The names of high renown,—
Van Tromp's proud besom fades from sight,
And Nelson 's half hull down!
Scarce one tall frigate walks the sea
Or skirts the safer shores
Of all that bore to victory
Our stout old commodores;
Hull, Bainbridge, Porter,—where are they?
The waves their answer roll,
“Still bright in memory's sunset ray,—
God rest each gallant soul!”
A brighter name must dim their light
With more than noontide ray,
The Sea-King of the “River Fight,”
The Conqueror of the Bay,—
Now then the broadside I cheer on cheer
To greet him safe on shore!
Health, peace, and many a bloodless year
To fight his battles o'er!

AT A DINNER TO GENERAL GRANT

JULY 31, 1865

When treason first began the strife
That crimsoned sea and shore,
The Nation poured her hoarded life
On Freedom's threshing-floor;
From field and prairie, east and west,
From coast and hill and plain,
The sheaves of ripening manhood pressed
Thick as the bearded grain.
Rich was the harvest; souls as true
As ever battle tried;
But fiercer still the conflict grew,
The floor of death more wide;
Ah, who forgets that dreadful day
Whose blot of grief and shame
Four bitter years scarce wash away
In seas of blood and flame?
Vain, vain the Nation's lofty boasts,
Vain all her sacrifice!
“Give me a man to lead my hosts,
O God in heaven!” she cries.
While Battle whirls his crushing flail,
And plies his winnowing fan,—
Thick flies the chaff on every gale,—
She cannot find her man!
Bravely they fought who failed to win,—
Our leaders battle-scarred,—
Fighting the hosts of hell and sin,
But devils die always hard!
Blame not the broken tools of God
That helped our sorest needs;
Through paths that martyr feet have trod
The conqueror's steps He leads.
But now the heavens grow black with doubt,
The ravens fill the sky,
“Friends” plot within, foes storm without,
Hark,—that despairing cry,
“Where is the heart, the hand, the brain
To dare, to do, to plan?”
The bleeding Nation shrieks in vain,—
She has not found her man!
A little echo stirs the air,—
Some tale, whate'er it be,
Of rebels routed in their lair
Along the Tennessee.
The little echo spreads and grows,
And soon the trump of Fame
Has taught the Nation's friends and foes
The “man on horseback”'s name.
So well his warlike wooing sped,
No fortress might resist
His billets-doux of lisping lead,
The bayonets in his fist,—
With kisses from his cannons' mouth
He made his passion known
Till Vicksburg, vestal of the South,
Unbound her virgin zone.
And still where'er his banners led
He conquered as he came,
The trembling hosts of treason fled
Before his breath of flame,
And Fame's still gathering echoes grew
Till high o'er Richmond's towers
The starry fold of Freedom flew,
And all the land was ours.
Welcome from fields where valor fought
To feasts where pleasure waits;
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A Nation gives you smiles unbought
At all her opening gates!
Forgive us when we press your hand,—
Your war-worn features scan,—
God sent you to a bleeding land;
Our Nation found its man!

TO H. W. LONGFELLOW

[_]

BEFORE HIS DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE, MAY 27, 1868

Our Poet, who has taught the Western breeze
To waft his songs before him o'er the seas,
Will find them wheresoe'er his wanderings reach
Borne on the spreading tide of English speech
Twin with the rhythmic waves that kiss the farthest beach.
Where shall the singing bird a stranger be
That finds a nest for him in every tree?
How shall he travel who can never go
Where his own voice the echoes do not know,
Where his own garden flowers no longer learn to grow?
Ah! gentlest soul! how gracious, how benign
Breathes through our troubled life that voice of thine,
Filled with a sweetness born of happier spheres,
That wins and warms, that kindles, softens, cheers,
That calms the wildest woe and stays the bitterest tears!
Forgive the simple words that sound like praise;
The mist before me dims my gilded phrase;
Our speech at best is half alive and cold,
And save that tenderer moments make us bold
Our whitening lips would close, their truest truth untold.
We who behold our autumn sun below
The Scorpion's sign, against the Archer's bow,
Know well what parting means of friend from friend;
After the snows no freshening dews descend,
And what the frost has marred, the sunshine will not mend.
So we all count the months, the weeks, the days,
That keep thee from us in unwonted ways,
Grudging to alien hearths our widowed time;
And one has shaped a breath in artless rhyme
That sighs, “We track thee still through each remotest clime.”
What wishes, longings, blessings, prayers shall be
The more than golden freight that floats with thee!
And know, whatever welcome thou shalt find,—
Thou who hast won the hearts of half mankind,—
The proudest, fondest love thou leavest still behind!

TO CHRISTIAN GOTTFRIED EHRENBERG

[_]

FOR HIS “JUBILÆUM” AT BERLIN, NOVEMBER 5, 1868

This poem was written at the suggestion of Mr. George Bancroft, the historian.
Thou who hast taught the teachers of mankind
How from the least of things the mightiest grow,
What marvel jealous Nature made thee blind,
Lest man should learn what angels long to know?
Thou in the flinty rock, the river's flow,
In the thick-moted sunbeam's sifted light
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Hast trained thy downward-pointed tube to show
Worlds within worlds unveiled to mortal sight,
Even as the patient watchers of the night,—
The cyclope gleaners of the fruitful skies,—
Show the wide misty way where heaven is white
All paved with suns that daze our wondering eyes.
Far o'er the stormy deep an empire lies,
Beyond the storied islands of the blest,
That waits to see the lingering day-star rise;
The forest-cinctured Eden of the West;
Whose queen, fair Freedom, twines her iron crest
With leaves from every wreath that mortals wear,
But loves the sober garland ever best
That science lends the sage's silvered hair;—
Science, who makes life's heritage more fair,
Forging for every lock its mastering key,
Filling with life and hope the stagnant air,
Pouring the light of Heaven o'er land and sea!
From her unsceptred realm we come to thee,
Bearing our slender tribute in our hands;
Deem it not worthless, humble though it be,
Set by the larger gifts of older lands:
The smallest fibres weave the strongest bands,—
In narrowest tubes the sovereign nerves are spun,—
A little cord along the deep sea-sands
Makes the live thought of severed nations one:
Thy fame has journeyed westering with the sun,
Prairies and lone sierras know thy name
And the long day of service nobly done
That crowns thy darkened evening with its flame!
One with the grateful world, we own thy claim,—
Nay, rather claim our right to join the throng
Who come with varied tongues, but hearts the same,
To hail thy festal morn with smiles and song;
Ah, happy they to whom the joys belong
Of peaceful triumphs that can never die
From History's record,—not of gilded wrong,
But golden truths that, while the world goes by
With all its empty pageant, blazoned high
Around the Master's name forever shine!
So shines thy name illumined in the sky,—
Such joys, such triumphs, such remembrance thine!

A TOAST TO WILKIE COLLINS

FEBRUARY 16, 1874

The painter's and the poet's fame
Shed their twinned lustre round his name,
To gild our story-teller's art,
Where each in turn must play his part.
What scenes from Wilkie's pencil sprung,
The minstrel saw but left unsung!
What shapes the pen of Collins drew,
No painter clad in living hue!
But on our artist's shadowy screen
A stranger miracle is seen
Than priest unveils or pilgrim seeks,—
The poem breathes, the picture speaks!
And so his double name comes true,
They christened better than they knew,
And Art proclaims him twice her son,—
Painter and poet, both in one!
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