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    Title: The Works of Whittier, Volume I (of VII)
           Narrative And Legendary Poems

    Author: John Greenleaf Whittier

    Release Date: July 9, 2009 [EBook #9567]
    Last Updated: November 10, 2012

    Language: English

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# THE WORKS OF JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, Volume I (of VII)

## NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS

## By John Greenleaf Whittier

# VOLUME I. NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS

## PUBLISHERS' ADVERTISEMENT

The Standard Library Edition of Mr. Whittier's writings comprises his poetical and prose works as re-arranged and thoroughly revised by himself or with his cooperation. Mr. Whittier has supplied such additional information regarding the subject and occasion of certain poems as may be stated in brief head-notes, and this edition has been much enriched by the poet's personal comment. So far as practicable the dates of publication of the various articles have been given, and since these were originally published soon after composition, the dates of their first appearance have been taken as determining the time at which they were written. At the request of the Publishers, Mr. Whittier has allowed his early poems, discarded from previous collections, to be placed, in the general order of their appearance, in an appendix to the final volume of poems. By this means the present edition is made so complete and retrospective that students of the poet's career will always find the most abundant material for their purpose. The Publishers congratulate themselves and the public that the careful attention which Mr. Whittier has been able to give to this revision of his works has resulted in so comprehensive and well-adjusted a collection.

The portraits prefixed to the several volumes have been chosen with a view to illustrating successive periods in the poet's life. The original sources and dates are indicated in each case.

NOTE.—The portrait prefixed to this volume was etched by S. A. Schoff, in 1888, after a painting by Bass Otis, a pupil of Gilbert Stuart, made in the winter of 1836-1837.

## PROEM

         I LOVE the old melodious lays
         Which softly melt the ages through,
         The songs of Spenser's golden days,
         Arcadian Sidney's silvery phrase,
         Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew.

         Yet, vainly in my quiet hours
         To breathe their marvellous notes I try;
         I feel them, as the leaves and flowers
         In silence feel the dewy showers,
         And drink with glad, still lips the blessing of the sky.

         The rigor of a frozen clime,
         The harshness of an untaught ear,
         The jarring words of one whose rhyme
         Beat often Labor's hurried time,
         Or Duty's rugged march through storm and strife, are here.

         Of mystic beauty, dreamy grace,
         No rounded art the lack supplies;
         Unskilled the subtle lines to trace,
         Or softer shades of Nature's face,
         I view her common forms with unanointed eyes.

         Nor mine the seer-like power to show
         The secrets of the heart and mind;
         To drop the plummet-line below
         Our common world of joy and woe,
         A more intense despair or brighter hope to find.

         Yet here at least an earnest sense
         Of human right and weal is shown;
         A hate of tyranny intense,
         And hearty in its vehemence,
         As if my brother's pain and sorrow were my own.

         O Freedom! if to me belong
         Nor mighty Milton's gift divine,
         Nor Marvell's wit and graceful song,
         Still with a love as deep and strong
         As theirs, I lay, like them, my best gifts on thy shrine.

         AMESBURY, 11th mo., 1847.

## INTRODUCTION

The edition of my poems published in 1857 contained the following note by way of preface:—

"In these volumes, for the first time, a complete collection of my poetical writings has been made. While it is satisfactory to know that these scattered children of my brain have found a home, I cannot but regret that I have been unable, by reason of illness, to give that attention to their revision and arrangement, which respect for the opinions of others and my own afterthought and experience demand.

"That there are pieces in this collection which I would 'willingly let die,' I am free to confess. But it is now too late to disown them, and I must submit to the inevitable penalty of poetical as well as other sins. There are others, intimately connected with the author's life and times, which owe their tenacity of vitality to the circumstances under which they were written, and the events by which they were suggested.

"The long poem of Mogg Megone was in a great measure composed in early life; and it is scarcely necessary to say that its subject is not such as the writer would have chosen at any subsequent period."

After a lapse of thirty years since the above was written, I have been requested by my publishers to make some preparation for a new and revised edition of my poems. I cannot flatter myself that I have added much to the interest of the work beyond the correction of my own errors and those of the press, with the addition of a few heretofore unpublished pieces, and occasional notes of explanation which seemed necessary. I have made an attempt to classify the poems under a few general heads, and have transferred the long poem of Mogg Megone to the Appendix, with other specimens of my earlier writings. I have endeavored to affix the dates of composition or publication as far as possible.

In looking over these poems I have not been unmindful of occasional prosaic lines and verbal infelicities, but at this late day I have neither strength nor patience to undertake their correction.

Perhaps a word of explanation may be needed in regard to a class of poems written between the years 1832 and 1865. Of their defects from an artistic point of view it is not necessary to speak. They were the earnest and often vehement expression of the writer's thought and feeling at critical periods in the great conflict between Freedom and Slavery. They were written with no expectation that they would survive the occasions which called them forth: they were protests, alarm signals, trumpet-calls to action, words wrung from the writer's heart, forged at white heat, and of course lacking the finish and careful word-selection which reflection and patient brooding over them might have given. Such as they are, they belong to the history of the Anti-Slavery movement, and may serve as way-marks of its progress. If their language at times seems severe and harsh, the monstrous wrong of Slavery which provoked it must be its excuse, if any is needed. In attacking it, we did not measure our words. "It is," said Garrison, "a waste of politeness to be courteous to the devil." But in truth the contest was, in a great measure, an impersonal one,—hatred of slavery and not of slave-masters.

                        "No common wrong provoked our zeal,
                        The silken gauntlet which is thrown
                        In such a quarrel rings like steel."

Even Thomas Jefferson, in his terrible denunciation of Slavery in the Notes on Virginia, says "It is impossible to be temperate and pursue the subject of Slavery." After the great contest was over, no class of the American people were more ready, with kind words and deprecation of harsh retaliation, to welcome back the revolted States than the Abolitionists; and none have since more heartily rejoiced at the fast increasing prosperity of the South.

    Grateful for the measure of favor which has been accorded to my
    writings, I leave this edition with the public. It contains all that I
    care to re-publish, and some things which, had the matter of choice been
    left solely to myself, I should have omitted.
                                                   J. G. W.

# NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS

## THE VAUDOIS TEACHER.

This poem was suggested by the account given of the manner which the Waldenses disseminated their principles among the Catholic gentry. They gained access to the house through their occupation as peddlers of silks, jewels, and trinkets. "Having disposed of some of their goods," it is said by a writer who quotes the inquisitor Rainerus Sacco, "they cautiously intimated that they had commodities far more valuable than these, inestimable jewels, which they would show if they could be protected from the clergy. They would then give their purchasers a Bible or Testament; and thereby many were deluded into heresy." The poem, under the title Le Colporteur Vaudois, was translated into French by Professor G. de Felice, of Montauban, and further naturalized by Professor Alexandre Rodolphe Vinet, who quoted it in his lectures on French literature, afterwards published. It became familiar in this form to the Waldenses, who adopted it as a household poem. An American clergyman, J. C. Fletcher, frequently heard it when he was a student, about the year 1850, in the theological seminary at Geneva, Switzerland, but the authorship of the poem was unknown to those who used it. Twenty-five years later, Mr. Fletcher, learning the name of the author, wrote to the moderator of the Waldensian synod at La Tour, giving the information. At the banquet which closed the meeting of the synod, the moderator announced the fact, and was instructed in the name of the Waldensian church to write to me a letter of thanks. My letter, written in reply, was translated into Italian and printed throughout Italy.

         "O LADY fair, these silks of mine
              are beautiful and rare,—
         The richest web of the Indian loom, which beauty's
              queen might wear;
         And my pearls are pure as thy own fair neck, with whose
              radiant light they vie;
         I have brought them with me a weary way,—will my
              gentle lady buy?"

         The lady smiled on the worn old man through the
              dark and clustering curls
         Which veiled her brow, as she bent to view his
              silks and glittering pearls;
         And she placed their price in the old man's hand
              and lightly turned away,
         But she paused at the wanderer's earnest call,—
              "My gentle lady, stay!

         "O lady fair, I have yet a gem which a purer
              lustre flings,
         Than the diamond flash of the jewelled crown on
              the lofty brow of kings;
         A wonderful pearl of exceeding price, whose virtue
              shall not decay,
         Whose light shall be as a spell to thee and a
              blessing on thy way!"

         The lady glanced at the mirroring steel where her
              form of grace was seen,
         Where her eye shone clear, and her dark locks
              waved their clasping pearls between;
         "Bring forth thy pearl of exceeding worth, thou
              traveller gray and old,
         And name the price of thy precious gem, and my
              page shall count thy gold."

         The cloud went off from the pilgrim's brow, as a
              small and meagre book,
         Unchased with gold or gem of cost, from his
              folding robe he took!
         "Here, lady fair, is the pearl of price, may it prove
              as such to thee
         Nay, keep thy gold—I ask it not, for the word of
              God is free!"

         The hoary traveller went his way, but the gift he
              left behind
         Hath had its pure and perfect work on that high-
              born maiden's mind,
         And she hath turned from the pride of sin to the
              lowliness of truth,
         And given her human heart to God in its beautiful
              hour of youth

         And she hath left the gray old halls, where an evil
              faith had power,
         The courtly knights of her father's train, and the
              maidens of her bower;
         And she hath gone to the Vaudois vales by lordly
              feet untrod,
         Where the poor and needy of earth are rich in the
              perfect love of God!
         1830.

## THE FEMALE MARTYR.

Mary G——-, aged eighteen, a "Sister of Charity," died in one of our Atlantic cities, during the prevalence of the Indian cholera, while in voluntary attendance upon the sick.

         "BRING out your dead!" The midnight street
         Heard and gave back the hoarse, low call;
         Harsh fell the tread of hasty feet,
         Glanced through the dark the coarse white sheet,
         Her coffin and her pall.
         "What—only one!" the brutal hack-man said,
         As, with an oath, he spurned away the dead.

         How sunk the inmost hearts of all,
         As rolled that dead-cart slowly by,
         With creaking wheel and harsh hoof-fall!
         The dying turned him to the wall,
         To hear it and to die!
         Onward it rolled; while oft its driver stayed,
         And hoarsely clamored, "Ho! bring out your dead."

         It paused beside the burial-place;
         "Toss in your load!" and it was done.
         With quick hand and averted face,
         Hastily to the grave's embrace
         They cast them, one by one,
         Stranger and friend, the evil and the just,
         Together trodden in the churchyard dust.

         And thou, young martyr! thou wast there;
         No white-robed sisters round thee trod,
         Nor holy hymn, nor funeral prayer
         Rose through the damp and noisome air,
         Giving thee to thy God;
         Nor flower, nor cross, nor hallowed taper gave
         Grace to the dead, and beauty to the grave!

         Yet, gentle sufferer! there shall be,
         In every heart of kindly feeling,
         A rite as holy paid to thee
         As if beneath the convent-tree
         Thy sisterhood were kneeling,
         At vesper hours, like sorrowing angels, keeping
         Their tearful watch around thy place of sleeping.

         For thou wast one in whom the light
         Of Heaven's own love was kindled well;
         Enduring with a martyr's might,
         Through weary day and wakeful night,
         Far more than words may tell
         Gentle, and meek, and lowly, and unknown,
         Thy mercies measured by thy God alone!

         Where manly hearts were failing, where
         The throngful street grew foul with death,
         O high-souled martyr! thou wast there,
         Inhaling, from the loathsome air,
         Poison with every breath.
         Yet shrinking not from offices of dread
         For the wrung dying, and the unconscious dead.

         And, where the sickly taper shed
         Its light through vapors, damp, confined,
         Hushed as a seraph's fell thy tread,
         A new Electra by the bed
         Of suffering human-kind!
         Pointing the spirit, in its dark dismay,
         To that pure hope which fadeth not away.

         Innocent teacher of the high
         And holy mysteries of Heaven!
         How turned to thee each glazing eye,
         In mute and awful sympathy,
         As thy low prayers were given;
         And the o'er-hovering Spoiler wore, the while,
         An angel's features, a deliverer's smile!

         A blessed task! and worthy one
         Who, turning from the world, as thou,
         Before life's pathway had begun
         To leave its spring-time flower and sun,
         Had sealed her early vow;
         Giving to God her beauty and her youth,
         Her pure affections and her guileless truth.

         Earth may not claim thee. Nothing here
         Could be for thee a meet reward;
         Thine is a treasure far more dear
         Eye hath not seen it, nor the ear
         Of living mortal heard
         The joys prepared, the promised bliss above,
         The holy presence of Eternal Love!

         Sleep on in peace. The earth has not
         A nobler name than thine shall be.
         The deeds by martial manhood wrought,
         The lofty energies of thought,
         The fire of poesy,
         These have but frail and fading honors; thine
         Shall Time unto Eternity consign.

         Yea, and when thrones shall crumble down,
         And human pride and grandeur fall,
         The herald's line of long renown,
         The mitre and the kingly crown,—
         Perishing glories all!
         The pure devotion of thy generous heart
         Shall live in Heaven, of which it was a part.
         1833.

## EXTRACT FROM "A NEW ENGLAND LEGEND."

### (Originally a part of the author's Moll Pitcher.)

         How has New England's romance fled,
         Even as a vision of the morning!
         Its rites foredone, its guardians dead,
         Its priestesses, bereft of dread,
         Waking the veriest urchin's scorning!
         Gone like the Indian wizard's yell
         And fire-dance round the magic rock,
         Forgotten like the Druid's spell
         At moonrise by his holy oak!
         No more along the shadowy glen
         Glide the dim ghosts of murdered men;
         No more the unquiet churchyard dead
         Glimpse upward from their turfy bed,
         Startling the traveller, late and lone;
         As, on some night of starless weather,
         They silently commune together,
         Each sitting on his own head-stone
         The roofless house, decayed, deserted,
         Its living tenants all departed,
         No longer rings with midnight revel
         Of witch, or ghost, or goblin evil;
         No pale blue flame sends out its flashes
         Through creviced roof and shattered sashes!
         The witch-grass round the hazel spring
         May sharply to the night-air sing,
         But there no more shall withered hags
         Refresh at ease their broomstick nags,
         Or taste those hazel-shadowed waters
         As beverage meet for Satan's daughters;
         No more their mimic tones be heard,
         The mew of cat, the chirp of bird,
         Shrill blending with the hoarser laughter
         Of the fell demon following after!
         The cautious goodman nails no more
         A horseshoe on his outer door,
         Lest some unseemly hag should fit
         To his own mouth her bridle-bit;
         The goodwife's churn no more refuses
         Its wonted culinary uses
         Until, with heated needle burned,
         The witch has to her place returned!
         Our witches are no longer old
         And wrinkled beldames, Satan-sold,
         But young and gay and laughing creatures,
         With the heart's sunshine on their features;
         Their sorcery—the light which dances
         Where the raised lid unveils its glances;
         Or that low-breathed and gentle tone,
         The music of Love's twilight hours,
         Soft, dream-like, as a fairy's moan
         Above her nightly closing flowers,
         Sweeter than that which sighed of yore
         Along the charmed Ausonian shore!
         Even she, our own weird heroine,
         Sole Pythoness of ancient Lynn,'
         Sleeps calmly where the living laid her;
         And the wide realm of sorcery,
         Left by its latest mistress free,
         Hath found no gray and skilled invader.
         So—perished Albion's "glammarye,"
         With him in Melrose Abbey sleeping,
         His charmed torch beside his knee,
         That even the dead himself might see
         The magic scroll within his keeping.
         And now our modern Yankee sees
         Nor omens, spells, nor mysteries;
         And naught above, below, around,
         Of life or death, of sight or sound,
         Whate'er its nature, form, or look,
         Excites his terror or surprise,
         All seeming to his knowing eyes
         Familiar as his "catechise,"
         Or "Webster's Spelling-Book."

         1833.

## THE DEMON OF THE STUDY.

         THE Brownie sits in the Scotchman's room,
         And eats his meat and drinks his ale,
         And beats the maid with her unused broom,
         And the lazy lout with his idle flail;
         But he sweeps the floor and threshes the corn,
         And hies him away ere the break of dawn.

         The shade of Denmark fled from the sun,
         And the Cocklane ghost from the barn-loft cheer,
         The fiend of Faust was a faithful one,
         Agrippa's demon wrought in fear,
         And the devil of Martin Luther sat
         By the stout monk's side in social chat.

         The Old Man of the Sea, on the neck of him
         Who seven times crossed the deep,
         Twined closely each lean and withered limb,
         Like the nightmare in one's sleep.
         But he drank of the wine, and Sindbad cast
         The evil weight from his back at last.

         But the demon that cometh day by day
         To my quiet room and fireside nook,
         Where the casement light falls dim and gray
         On faded painting and ancient book,
         Is a sorrier one than any whose names
         Are chronicled well by good King James.

         No bearer of burdens like Caliban,
         No runner of errands like Ariel,
         He comes in the shape of a fat old man,
         Without rap of knuckle or pull of bell;
         And whence he comes, or whither he goes,
         I know as I do of the wind which blows.

         A stout old man with a greasy hat
         Slouched heavily down to his dark, red nose,
         And two gray eyes enveloped in fat,
         Looking through glasses with iron bows.
         Read ye, and heed ye, and ye who can,
         Guard well your doors from that old man!

         He comes with a careless "How d' ye do?"
         And seats himself in my elbow-chair;
         And my morning paper and pamphlet new
         Fall forthwith under his special care,
         And he wipes his glasses and clears his throat,
         And, button by button, unfolds his coat.

         And then he reads from paper and book,
         In a low and husky asthmatic tone,
         With the stolid sameness of posture and look
         Of one who reads to himself alone;
         And hour after hour on my senses come
         That husky wheeze and that dolorous hum.

         The price of stocks, the auction sales,
         The poet's song and the lover's glee,
         The horrible murders, the seaboard gales,
         The marriage list, and the jeu d'esprit,
         All reach my ear in the self-same tone,—
         I shudder at each, but the fiend reads on!

         Oh, sweet as the lapse of water at noon
         O'er the mossy roots of some forest tree,
         The sigh of the wind in the woods of June,
         Or sound of flutes o'er a moonlight sea,
         Or the low soft music, perchance, which seems
         To float through the slumbering singer's dreams,

         So sweet, so dear is the silvery tone,
         Of her in whose features I sometimes look,
         As I sit at eve by her side alone,
         And we read by turns, from the self-same book,
         Some tale perhaps of the olden time,
         Some lover's romance or quaint old rhyme.

         Then when the story is one of woe,—
         Some prisoner's plaint through his dungeon-bar,
         Her blue eye glistens with tears, and low
         Her voice sinks down like a moan afar;
         And I seem to hear that prisoner's wail,
         And his face looks on me worn and pale.

         And when she reads some merrier song,
         Her voice is glad as an April bird's,
         And when the tale is of war and wrong,
         A trumpet's summons is in her words,
         And the rush of the hosts I seem to hear,
         And see the tossing of plume and spear!

         Oh, pity me then, when, day by day,
         The stout fiend darkens my parlor door;
         And reads me perchance the self-same lay
         Which melted in music, the night before,
         From lips as the lips of Hylas sweet,
         And moved like twin roses which zephyrs meet!

         I cross my floor with a nervous tread,
         I whistle and laugh and sing and shout,
         I flourish my cane above his head,
         And stir up the fire to roast him out;
         I topple the chairs, and drum on the pane,
         And press my hands on my ears, in vain!

         I've studied Glanville and James the wise,
         And wizard black-letter tomes which treat
         Of demons of every name and size
         Which a Christian man is presumed to meet,
         But never a hint and never a line
         Can I find of a reading fiend like mine.

         I've crossed the Psalter with Brady and Tate,
         And laid the Primer above them all,
         I've nailed a horseshoe over the grate,
         And hung a wig to my parlor wall
         Once worn by a learned Judge, they say,
         At Salem court in the witchcraft day!

         "Conjuro te, sceleratissime,
         Abire ad tuum locum!"—still
         Like a visible nightmare he sits by me,—
         The exorcism has lost its skill;
         And I hear again in my haunted room
         The husky wheeze and the dolorous hum!

         Ah! commend me to Mary Magdalen
         With her sevenfold plagues, to the wandering Jew,
         To the terrors which haunted Orestes when
         The furies his midnight curtains drew,
         But charm him off, ye who charm him can,
         That reading demon, that fat old man!

         1835.

## THE FOUNTAIN.

On the declivity of a hill in Salisbury, Essex County, is a fountain of clear water, gushing from the very roots of a venerable oak. It is about two miles from the junction of the Powow River with the Merrimac.

         TRAVELLER! on thy journey toiling
         By the swift Powow,
         With the summer sunshine falling
         On thy heated brow,
         Listen, while all else is still,
         To the brooklet from the hill.

         Wild and sweet the flowers are blowing
         By that streamlet's side,
         And a greener verdure showing
         Where its waters glide,
         Down the hill-slope murmuring on,
         Over root and mossy stone.

         Where yon oak his broad arms flingeth
         O'er the sloping hill,
         Beautiful and freshly springeth
         That soft-flowing rill,
         Through its dark roots wreathed and bare,
         Gushing up to sun and air.

         Brighter waters sparkled never
         In that magic well,
         Of whose gift of life forever
         Ancient legends tell,
         In the lonely desert wasted,
         And by mortal lip untasted.

         Waters which the proud Castilian
         Sought with longing eyes,
         Underneath the bright pavilion
         Of the Indian skies,
         Where his forest pathway lay
         Through the blooms of Florida.

         Years ago a lonely stranger,
         With the dusky brow
         Of the outcast forest-ranger,
         Crossed the swift Powow,
         And betook him to the rill
         And the oak upon the hill.

         O'er his face of moody sadness
         For an instant shone
         Something like a gleam of gladness,
         As he stooped him down
         To the fountain's grassy side,
         And his eager thirst supplied.

         With the oak its shadow throwing
         O'er his mossy seat,
         And the cool, sweet waters flowing
         Softly at his feet,
         Closely by the fountain's rim
         That lone Indian seated him.

         Autumn's earliest frost had given
         To the woods below
         Hues of beauty, such as heaven
         Lendeth to its bow;
         And the soft breeze from the west
         Scarcely broke their dreamy rest.

         Far behind was Ocean striving
         With his chains of sand;
         Southward, sunny glimpses giving,
         'Twixt the swells of land,
         Of its calm and silvery track,
         Rolled the tranquil Merrimac.

         Over village, wood, and meadow
         Gazed that stranger man,
         Sadly, till the twilight shadow
         Over all things ran,
         Save where spire and westward pane
         Flashed the sunset back again.

         Gazing thus upon the dwelling
         Of his warrior sires,
         Where no lingering trace was telling
         Of their wigwam fires,
         Who the gloomy thoughts might know
         Of that wandering child of woe?

         Naked lay, in sunshine glowing,
         Hills that once had stood
         Down their sides the shadows throwing
         Of a mighty wood,
         Where the deer his covert kept,
         And the eagle's pinion swept!

         Where the birch canoe had glided
         Down the swift Powow,
         Dark and gloomy bridges strided
         Those clear waters now;
         And where once the beaver swam,
         Jarred the wheel and frowned the dam.

         For the wood-bird's merry singing,
         And the hunter's cheer,
         Iron clang and hammer's ringing
         Smote upon his ear;
         And the thick and sullen smoke
         From the blackened forges broke.

         Could it be his fathers ever
         Loved to linger here?
         These bare hills, this conquered river,—
         Could they hold them dear,
         With their native loveliness
         Tamed and tortured into this?

         Sadly, as the shades of even
         Gathered o'er the hill,
         While the western half of heaven
         Blushed with sunset still,
         From the fountain's mossy seat
         Turned the Indian's weary feet.

         Year on year hath flown forever,
         But he came no more
         To the hillside on the river
         Where he came before.
         But the villager can tell
         Of that strange man's visit well.

         And the merry children, laden
         With their fruits or flowers,
         Roving boy and laughing maiden,
         In their school-day hours,
         Love the simple tale to tell
         Of the Indian and his well.

         1837

## PENTUCKET.

The village of Haverhill, on the Merrimac, called by the Indians Pentucket, was for nearly seventeen years a frontier town, and during thirty years endured all the horrors of savage warfare. In the year 1708, a combined body of French and Indians, under the command of De Chaillons, and Hertel de Rouville, the famous and bloody sacker of Deerfield, made an attack upon the village, which at that time contained only thirty houses. Sixteen of the villagers were massacred, and a still larger number made prisoners. About thirty of the enemy also fell, among them Hertel de Rouville. The minister of the place, Benjamin Rolfe, was killed by a shot through his own door. In a paper entitled The Border War of 1708, published in my collection of Recreations and Miscellanies, I have given a prose narrative of the surprise of Haverhill.

         How sweetly on the wood-girt town
         The mellow light of sunset shone!
         Each small, bright lake, whose waters still
         Mirror the forest and the hill,
         Reflected from its waveless breast
         The beauty of a cloudless west,
         Glorious as if a glimpse were given
         Within the western gates of heaven,
         Left, by the spirit of the star
         Of sunset's holy hour, ajar!

         Beside the river's tranquil flood
         The dark and low-walled dwellings stood,
         Where many a rood of open land
         Stretched up and down on either hand,
         With corn-leaves waving freshly green
         The thick and blackened stumps between.
         Behind, unbroken, deep and dread,
         The wild, untravelled forest spread,
         Back to those mountains, white and cold,
         Of which the Indian trapper told,
         Upon whose summits never yet
         Was mortal foot in safety set.

         Quiet and calm without a fear,
         Of danger darkly lurking near,
         The weary laborer left his plough,
         The milkmaid carolled by her cow;
         From cottage door and household hearth
         Rose songs of praise, or tones of mirth.

         At length the murmur died away,
         And silence on that village lay.
         —So slept Pompeii, tower and hall,
         Ere the quick earthquake swallowed all,
         Undreaming of the fiery fate
         Which made its dwellings desolate.

         Hours passed away. By moonlight sped
         The Merrimac along his bed.
         Bathed in the pallid lustre, stood
         Dark cottage-wall and rock and wood,
         Silent, beneath that tranquil beam,
         As the hushed grouping of a dream.
         Yet on the still air crept a sound,
         No bark of fox, nor rabbit's bound,
         Nor stir of wings, nor waters flowing,
         Nor leaves in midnight breezes blowing.

         Was that the tread of many feet,
         Which downward from the hillside beat?
         What forms were those which darkly stood
         Just on the margin of the wood?—
         Charred tree-stumps in the moonlight dim,
         Or paling rude, or leafless limb?
         No,—through the trees fierce eyeballs glowed,
         Dark human forms in moonshine showed,
         Wild from their native wilderness,
         With painted limbs and battle-dress.

         A yell the dead might wake to hear
         Swelled on the night air, far and clear;
         Then smote the Indian tomahawk
         On crashing door and shattering lock;

         Then rang the rifle-shot, and then
         The shrill death-scream of stricken men,—
         Sank the red axe in woman's brain,
         And childhood's cry arose in vain.
         Bursting through roof and window came,
         Red, fast, and fierce, the kindled flame,
         And blended fire and moonlight glared
         On still dead men and scalp-knives bared.

         The morning sun looked brightly through
         The river willows, wet with dew.
         No sound of combat filled the air,
         No shout was heard, nor gunshot there;
         Yet still the thick and sullen smoke
         From smouldering ruins slowly broke;
         And on the greensward many a stain,
         And, here and there, the mangled slain,
         Told how that midnight bolt had sped
         Pentucket, on thy fated head.

         Even now the villager can tell
         Where Rolfe beside his hearthstone fell,
         Still show the door of wasting oak,
         Through which the fatal death-shot broke,
         And point the curious stranger where
         De Rouville's corse lay grim and bare;
         Whose hideous head, in death still feared,
         Bore not a trace of hair or beard;
         And still, within the churchyard ground,
         Heaves darkly up the ancient mound,
         Whose grass-grown surface overlies
         The victims of that sacrifice.
         1838.

## THE NORSEMEN.

In the early part of the present century, a fragment of a statue, rudely chiselled from dark gray stone, was found in the town of Bradford, on the Merrimac. Its origin must be left entirely to conjecture. The fact that the ancient Northmen visited the north-east coast of North America and probably New England, some centuries before the discovery of the western world by Columbus, is very generally admitted.

         GIFT from the cold and silent Past!
         A relic to the present cast,
         Left on the ever-changing strand
         Of shifting and unstable sand,
         Which wastes beneath the steady chime
         And beating of the waves of Time!
         Who from its bed of primal rock
         First wrenched thy dark, unshapely block?
         Whose hand, of curious skill untaught,
         Thy rude and savage outline wrought?

         The waters of my native stream
         Are glancing in the sun's warm beam;
         From sail-urged keel and flashing oar
         The circles widen to its shore;
         And cultured field and peopled town
         Slope to its willowed margin down.
         Yet, while this morning breeze is bringing
         The home-life sound of school-bells ringing,
         And rolling wheel, and rapid jar
         Of the fire-winged and steedless car,
         And voices from the wayside near
         Come quick and blended on my ear,—
         A spell is in this old gray stone,
         My thoughts are with the Past alone!

         A change!—The steepled town no more
         Stretches along the sail-thronged shore;
         Like palace-domes in sunset's cloud,
         Fade sun-gilt spire and mansion proud
         Spectrally rising where they stood,
         I see the old, primeval wood;
         Dark, shadow-like, on either hand
         I see its solemn waste expand;
         It climbs the green and cultured hill,
         It arches o'er the valley's rill,
         And leans from cliff and crag to throw
         Its wild arms o'er the stream below.
         Unchanged, alone, the same bright river
         Flows on, as it will flow forever
         I listen, and I hear the low
         Soft ripple where its waters go;
         I hear behind the panther's cry,
         The wild-bird's scream goes thrilling by,
         And shyly on the river's brink
         The deer is stooping down to drink.

         But hark!—from wood and rock flung back,
         What sound comes up the Merrimac?
         What sea-worn barks are those which throw
         The light spray from each rushing prow?
         Have they not in the North Sea's blast
         Bowed to the waves the straining mast?
         Their frozen sails the low, pale sun
         Of Thule's night has shone upon;
         Flapped by the sea-wind's gusty sweep
         Round icy drift, and headland steep.
         Wild Jutland's wives and Lochlin's daughters
         Have watched them fading o'er the waters,
         Lessening through driving mist and spray,
         Like white-winged sea-birds on their way!

         Onward they glide,—and now I view
         Their iron-armed and stalwart crew;
         Joy glistens in each wild blue eye,
         Turned to green earth and summer sky.
         Each broad, seamed breast has cast aside
         Its cumbering vest of shaggy hide;
         Bared to the sun and soft warm air,
         Streams back the Norsemen's yellow hair.
         I see the gleam of axe and spear,
         The sound of smitten shields I hear,
         Keeping a harsh and fitting time
         To Saga's chant, and Runic rhyme;
         Such lays as Zetland's Scald has sung,
         His gray and naked isles among;
         Or muttered low at midnight hour
         Round Odin's mossy stone of power.
         The wolf beneath the Arctic moon
         Has answered to that startling rune;
         The Gael has heard its stormy swell,
         The light Frank knows its summons well;
         Iona's sable-stoled Culdee
         Has heard it sounding o'er the sea,
         And swept, with hoary beard and hair,
         His altar's foot in trembling prayer.

         'T is past,—the 'wildering vision dies
         In darkness on my dreaming eyes
         The forest vanishes in air,
         Hill-slope and vale lie starkly bare;
         I hear the common tread of men,
         And hum of work-day life again;

         The mystic relic seems alone
         A broken mass of common stone;
         And if it be the chiselled limb
         Of Berserker or idol grim,
         A fragment of Valhalla's Thor,
         The stormy Viking's god of War,
         Or Praga of the Runic lay,
         Or love-awakening Siona,
         I know not,—for no graven line,
         Nor Druid mark, nor Runic sign,
         Is left me here, by which to trace
         Its name, or origin, or place.
         Yet, for this vision of the Past,
         This glance upon its darkness cast,
         My spirit bows in gratitude
         Before the Giver of all good,
         Who fashioned so the human mind,
         That, from the waste of Time behind,
         A simple stone, or mound of earth,
         Can summon the departed forth;
         Quicken the Past to life again,
         The Present lose in what hath been,
         And in their primal freshness show
         The buried forms of long ago.
         As if a portion of that Thought
         By which the Eternal will is wrought,
         Whose impulse fills anew with breath
         The frozen solitude of Death,
         To mortal mind were sometimes lent,
         To mortal musings sometimes sent,
         To whisper-even when it seems
         But Memory's fantasy of dreams—
         Through the mind's waste of woe and sin,
         Of an immortal origin!

         1841.

## FUNERAL TREE OF THE SOKOKIS.

Polan, chief of the Sokokis Indians of the country between Agamenticus and Casco Bay, was killed at Windham on Sebago Lake in the spring of 1756. After the whites had retired, the surviving Indians "swayed" or bent down a young tree until its roots were upturned, placed the body of their chief beneath it, then released the tree, which, in springing back to its old position, covered the grave. The Sokokis were early converts to the Catholic faith. Most of them, prior to the year 1756, had removed to the French settlements on the St. Francois.

         AROUND Sebago's lonely lake
         There lingers not a breeze to break
         The mirror which its waters make.

         The solemn pines along its shore,
         The firs which hang its gray rocks o'er,
         Are painted on its glassy floor.

         The sun looks o'er, with hazy eye,
         The snowy mountain-tops which lie
         Piled coldly up against the sky.

         Dazzling and white! save where the bleak,
         Wild winds have bared some splintering peak,
         Or snow-slide left its dusky streak.

         Yet green are Saco's banks below,
         And belts of spruce and cedar show,
         Dark fringing round those cones of snow.

         The earth hath felt the breath of spring,
         Though yet on her deliverer's wing
         The lingering frosts of winter cling.

         Fresh grasses fringe the meadow-brooks,
         And mildly from its sunny nooks
         The blue eye of the violet looks.

         And odors from the springing grass,
         The sweet birch and the sassafras,
         Upon the scarce-felt breezes pass.

         Her tokens of renewing care
         Hath Nature scattered everywhere,
         In bud and flower, and warmer air.

         But in their hour of bitterness,
         What reek the broken Sokokis,
         Beside their slaughtered chief, of this?

         The turf's red stain is yet undried,
         Scarce have the death-shot echoes died
         Along Sebago's wooded side;

         And silent now the hunters stand,
         Grouped darkly, where a swell of land
         Slopes upward from the lake's white sand.

         Fire and the axe have swept it bare,
         Save one lone beech, unclosing there
         Its light leaves in the vernal air.

         With grave, cold looks, all sternly mute,
         They break the damp turf at its foot,
         And bare its coiled and twisted root.

         They heave the stubborn trunk aside,
         The firm roots from the earth divide,—
         The rent beneath yawns dark and wide.

         And there the fallen chief is laid,
         In tasselled garb of skins arrayed,
         And girded with his wampum-braid.

         The silver cross he loved is pressed
         Beneath the heavy arms, which rest
         Upon his scarred and naked breast.

         'T is done: the roots are backward sent,
         The beechen-tree stands up unbent,
         The Indian's fitting monument!

         When of that sleeper's broken race
         Their green and pleasant dwelling-place,
         Which knew them once, retains no trace;

         Oh, long may sunset's light be shed
         As now upon that beech's head,
         A green memorial of the dead!

         There shall his fitting requiem be,
         In northern winds, that, cold and free,
         Howl nightly in that funeral tree.

         To their wild wail the waves which break
         Forever round that lonely lake
         A solemn undertone shall make!

         And who shall deem the spot unblest,
         Where Nature's younger children rest,
         Lulled on their sorrowing mother's breast?

         Deem ye that mother loveth less
         These bronzed forms of the wilderness
         She foldeth in her long caress?

         As sweet o'er them her wild-flowers blow,
         As if with fairer hair and brow
         The blue-eyed Saxon slept below.

         What though the places of their rest
         No priestly knee hath ever pressed,—
         No funeral rite nor prayer hath blessed?

         What though the bigot's ban be there,
         And thoughts of wailing and despair,
         And cursing in the place of prayer.

         Yet Heaven hath angels watching round
         The Indian's lowliest forest-mound,—
         And they have made it holy ground.

         There ceases man's frail judgment; all
         His powerless bolts of cursing fall
         Unheeded on that grassy pall.

         O peeled and hunted and reviled,
         Sleep on, dark tenant of the wild!
         Great Nature owns her simple child!

         And Nature's God, to whom alone
         The secret of the heart is known,—
         The hidden language traced thereon;

         Who from its many cumberings
         Of form and creed, and outward things,
         To light the naked spirit brings;

         Not with our partial eye shall scan,
         Not with our pride and scorn shall ban,
         The spirit of our brother man!
         1841.

## ST. JOHN.

The fierce rivalry between Charles de La Tour, a Protestant, and D'Aulnay Charnasy, a Catholic, for the possession of Acadia, forms one of the most romantic passages in the history of the New World. La Tour received aid in several instances from the Puritan colony of Massachusetts. During one of his voyages for the purpose of obtaining arms and provisions for his establishment at St. John, his castle was attacked by D'Aulnay, and successfully defended by its high-spirited mistress. A second attack however followed in the fourth month, 1647, when D'Aulnay was successful, and the garrison was put to the sword. Lady La Tour languished a few days in the hands of her enemy, and then died of grief.

         "To the winds give our banner!
         Bear homeward again!"
         Cried the Lord of Acadia,
         Cried Charles of Estienne;
         From the prow of his shallop
         He gazed, as the sun,
         From its bed in the ocean,
         Streamed up the St. John.

         O'er the blue western waters
         That shallop had passed,
         Where the mists of Penobscot
         Clung damp on her mast.
         St. Saviour had looked
         On the heretic sail,
         As the songs of the Huguenot
         Rose on the gale.

         The pale, ghostly fathers
         Remembered her well,
         And had cursed her while passing,
         With taper and bell;
         But the men of Monhegan,
         Of Papists abhorred,
         Had welcomed and feasted
         The heretic Lord.

         They had loaded his shallop
         With dun-fish and ball,
         With stores for his larder,
         And steel for his wall.
         Pemaquid, from her bastions
         And turrets of stone,
         Had welcomed his coming
         With banner and gun.

         And the prayers of the elders
         Had followed his way,
         As homeward he glided,
         Down Pentecost Bay.
         Oh, well sped La Tour
         For, in peril and pain,
         His lady kept watch,
         For his coming again.

         O'er the Isle of the Pheasant
         The morning sun shone,
         On the plane-trees which shaded
         The shores of St. John.
         "Now, why from yon battlements
         Speaks not my love!
         Why waves there no banner
         My fortress above?"

         Dark and wild, from his deck
         St. Estienne gazed about,
         On fire-wasted dwellings,
         And silent redoubt;
         From the low, shattered walls
         Which the flame had o'errun,
         There floated no banner,
         There thundered no gun!

         But beneath the low arch
         Of its doorway there stood
         A pale priest of Rome,
         In his cloak and his hood.
         With the bound of a lion,
         La Tour sprang to land,
         On the throat of the Papist
         He fastened his hand.

         "Speak, son of the Woman
         Of scarlet and sin!
         What wolf has been prowling
         My castle within?"
         From the grasp of the soldier
         The Jesuit broke,
         Half in scorn, half in sorrow,
         He smiled as he spoke:

         "No wolf, Lord of Estienne,
         Has ravaged thy hall,
         But thy red-handed rival,
         With fire, steel, and ball!
         On an errand of mercy
         I hitherward came,
         While the walls of thy castle
         Yet spouted with flame.

         "Pentagoet's dark vessels
         Were moored in the bay,
         Grim sea-lions, roaring
         Aloud for their prey."
         "But what of my lady?"
         Cried Charles of Estienne.
         "On the shot-crumbled turret
         Thy lady was seen:

         "Half-veiled in the smoke-cloud,
         Her hand grasped thy pennon,
         While her dark tresses swayed
         In the hot breath of cannon!
         But woe to the heretic,
         Evermore woe!
         When the son of the church
         And the cross is his foe!

         "In the track of the shell,
         In the path of the ball,
         Pentagoet swept over
         The breach of the wall!
         Steel to steel, gun to gun,
         One moment,—and then
         Alone stood the victor,
         Alone with his men!

         "Of its sturdy defenders,
         Thy lady alone
         Saw the cross-blazoned banner
         Float over St. John."
         "Let the dastard look to it!"
         Cried fiery Estienne,
         "Were D'Aulnay King Louis,
         I'd free her again!"

         "Alas for thy lady!
         No service from thee
         Is needed by her
         Whom the Lord hath set free;
         Nine days, in stern silence,
         Her thraldom she bore,
         But the tenth morning came,
         And Death opened her door!"

         As if suddenly smitten
         La Tour staggered back;
         His hand grasped his sword-hilt,
         His forehead grew black.
         He sprang on the deck
         Of his shallop again.
         "We cruise now for vengeance!
         Give way!" cried Estienne.

         "Massachusetts shall hear
         Of the Huguenot's wrong,
         And from island and creekside
         Her fishers shall throng!
         Pentagoet shall rue
         What his Papists have done,
         When his palisades echo
         The Puritan's gun!"

         Oh, the loveliest of heavens
         Hung tenderly o'er him,
         There were waves in the sunshine,
         And green isles before him:
         But a pale hand was beckoning
         The Huguenot on;
         And in blackness and ashes
         Behind was St. John!

         1841

## THE CYPRESS-TREE OF CEYLON.

Ibn Batuta, the celebrated Mussulman traveller of the fourteenth century, speaks of a cypress-tree in Ceylon, universally held sacred by the natives, the leaves of which were said to fall only at certain intervals, and he who had the happiness to find and eat one of them was restored, at once, to youth and vigor. The traveller saw several venerable Jogees, or saints, sitting silent and motionless under the tree, patiently awaiting the falling of a leaf.

         THEY sat in silent watchfulness
         The sacred cypress-tree about,
         And, from beneath old wrinkled brows,
         Their failing eyes looked out.

         Gray Age and Sickness waiting there
         Through weary night and lingering day,—
         Grim as the idols at their side,
         And motionless as they.

         Unheeded in the boughs above
         The song of Ceylon's birds was sweet;
         Unseen of them the island flowers
         Bloomed brightly at their feet.

         O'er them the tropic night-storm swept,
         The thunder crashed on rock and hill;
         The cloud-fire on their eyeballs blazed,
         Yet there they waited still!

         What was the world without to them?
         The Moslem's sunset-call, the dance
         Of Ceylon's maids, the passing gleam
         Of battle-flag and lance?

         They waited for that falling leaf
         Of which the wandering Jogees sing:
         Which lends once more to wintry age
         The greenness of its spring.

         Oh, if these poor and blinded ones
         In trustful patience wait to feel
         O'er torpid pulse and failing limb
         A youthful freshness steal;

         Shall we, who sit beneath that Tree
         Whose healing leaves of life are shed,
         In answer to the breath of prayer,
         Upon the waiting head;

         Not to restore our failing forms,
         And build the spirit's broken shrine,
         But on the fainting soul to shed
         A light and life divine—

         Shall we grow weary in our watch,
         And murmur at the long delay?
         Impatient of our Father's time
         And His appointed way?

         Or shall the stir of outward things
         Allure and claim the Christian's eye,
         When on the heathen watcher's ear
         Their powerless murmurs die?

         Alas! a deeper test of faith
         Than prison cell or martyr's stake,
         The self-abasing watchfulness
         Of silent prayer may make.

         We gird us bravely to rebuke
         Our erring brother in the wrong,—
         And in the ear of Pride and Power
         Our warning voice is strong.

         Easier to smite with Peter's sword
         Than "watch one hour" in humbling prayer.
         Life's "great things," like the Syrian lord,
         Our hearts can do and dare.

         But oh! we shrink from Jordan's side,
         From waters which alone can save;

         And murmur for Abana's banks
         And Pharpar's brighter wave.

         O Thou, who in the garden's shade
         Didst wake Thy weary ones again,
         Who slumbered at that fearful hour
         Forgetful of Thy pain;

         Bend o'er us now, as over them,
         And set our sleep-bound spirits free,
         Nor leave us slumbering in the watch
         Our souls should keep with Thee!

         1841

## THE EXILES.

The incidents upon which the following ballad has its foundation about the year 1660. Thomas Macy was one of the first, if not the first white settler of Nantucket. The career of Macy is briefly but carefully outlined in James S. Pike's The New Puritan.

         THE goodman sat beside his door
         One sultry afternoon,
         With his young wife singing at his side
         An old and goodly tune.

         A glimmer of heat was in the air,—
         The dark green woods were still;
         And the skirts of a heavy thunder-cloud
         Hung over the western hill.

         Black, thick, and vast arose that cloud
         Above the wilderness,

         As some dark world from upper air
         Were stooping over this.

         At times the solemn thunder pealed,
         And all was still again,
         Save a low murmur in the air
         Of coming wind and rain.

         Just as the first big rain-drop fell,
         A weary stranger came,
         And stood before the farmer's door,
         With travel soiled and lame.

         Sad seemed he, yet sustaining hope
         Was in his quiet glance,
         And peace, like autumn's moonlight, clothed
         His tranquil countenance,—

         A look, like that his Master wore
         In Pilate's council-hall:
         It told of wrongs, but of a love
         Meekly forgiving all.

         "Friend! wilt thou give me shelter here?"
         The stranger meekly said;
         And, leaning on his oaken staff,
         The goodman's features read.

         "My life is hunted,—evil men
         Are following in my track;
         The traces of the torturer's whip
         Are on my aged back;

         "And much, I fear, 't will peril thee
         Within thy doors to take
         A hunted seeker of the Truth,
         Oppressed for conscience' sake."

         Oh, kindly spoke the goodman's wife,
         "Come in, old man!" quoth she,
         "We will not leave thee to the storm,
         Whoever thou mayst be."

         Then came the aged wanderer in,
         And silent sat him down;
         While all within grew dark as night
         Beneath the storm-cloud's frown.

         But while the sudden lightning's blaze
         Filled every cottage nook,
         And with the jarring thunder-roll
         The loosened casements shook,

         A heavy tramp of horses' feet
         Came sounding up the lane,
         And half a score of horse, or more,
         Came plunging through the rain.

         "Now, Goodman Macy, ope thy door,—
         We would not be house-breakers;
         A rueful deed thou'st done this day,
         In harboring banished Quakers."

         Out looked the cautious goodman then,
         With much of fear and awe,
         For there, with broad wig drenched with rain
         The parish priest he saw.

         Open thy door, thou wicked man,
         And let thy pastor in,
         And give God thanks, if forty stripes
         Repay thy deadly sin."

         "What seek ye?" quoth the goodman;
         "The stranger is my guest;
         He is worn with toil and grievous wrong,—
         Pray let the old man rest."

         "Now, out upon thee, canting knave!"
         And strong hands shook the door.
         "Believe me, Macy," quoth the priest,
         "Thou 'lt rue thy conduct sore."

         Then kindled Macy's eye of fire
         "No priest who walks the earth,
         Shall pluck away the stranger-guest
         Made welcome to my hearth."

         Down from his cottage wall he caught
         The matchlock, hotly tried
         At Preston-pans and Marston-moor,
         By fiery Ireton's side;

         Where Puritan, and Cavalier,
         With shout and psalm contended;
         And Rupert's oath, and Cromwell's prayer,
         With battle-thunder blended.

         Up rose the ancient stranger then
         "My spirit is not free
         To bring the wrath and violence
         Of evil men on thee;

         "And for thyself, I pray forbear,
         Bethink thee of thy Lord,
         Who healed again the smitten ear,
         And sheathed His follower's sword.

         "I go, as to the slaughter led.
         Friends of the poor, farewell!"
         Beneath his hand the oaken door
         Back on its hinges fell.

         "Come forth, old graybeard, yea and nay,"
         The reckless scoffers cried,
         As to a horseman's saddle-bow
         The old man's arms were tied.

         And of his bondage hard and long
         In Boston's crowded jail,
         Where suffering woman's prayer was heard,
         With sickening childhood's wail,

         It suits not with our tale to tell;
         Those scenes have passed away;
         Let the dim shadows of the past
         Brood o'er that evil day.

         "Ho, sheriff!" quoth the ardent priest,
         "Take Goodman Macy too;
         The sin of this day's heresy
         His back or purse shall rue."

         "Now, goodwife, haste thee!" Macy cried.
         She caught his manly arm;
         Behind, the parson urged pursuit,
         With outcry and alarm.

         Ho! speed the Macys, neck or naught,—
         The river-course was near;
         The plashing on its pebbled shore
         Was music to their ear.

         A gray rock, tasselled o'er with birch,
         Above the waters hung,
         And at its base, with every wave,
         A small light wherry swung.

         A leap—they gain the boat—and there
         The goodman wields his oar;
         "Ill luck betide them all," he cried,
         "The laggards on the shore."

         Down through the crashing underwood,
         The burly sheriff came:—
         "Stand, Goodman Macy, yield thyself;
         Yield in the King's own name."

         "Now out upon thy hangman's face!"
         Bold Macy answered then,—
         "Whip women, on the village green,
         But meddle not with men."

         The priest came panting to the shore,
         His grave cocked hat was gone;
         Behind him, like some owl's nest, hung
         His wig upon a thorn.

         "Come back,—come back!" the parson cried,
         "The church's curse beware."
         "Curse, an' thou wilt," said Macy, "but
         Thy blessing prithee spare."

         "Vile scoffer!" cried the baffled priest,
         "Thou 'lt yet the gallows see."
         "Who's born to be hanged will not be drowned,"
         Quoth Macy, merrily;

         "And so, sir sheriff and priest, good-by!"
         He bent him to his oar,
         And the small boat glided quietly
         From the twain upon the shore.

         Now in the west, the heavy clouds
         Scattered and fell asunder,
         While feebler came the rush of rain,
         And fainter growled the thunder.

         And through the broken clouds, the sun
         Looked out serene and warm,
         Painting its holy symbol-light
         Upon the passing storm.

         Oh, beautiful! that rainbow span,
         O'er dim Crane-neck was bended;
         One bright foot touched the eastern hills,
         And one with ocean blended.

         By green Pentucket's southern'slope
         The small boat glided fast;
         The watchers of the Block-house saw
         The strangers as they passed.

         That night a stalwart garrison
         Sat shaking in their shoes,
         To hear the dip of Indian oars,
         The glide of birch canoes.

         The fisher-wives of Salisbury—
         The men were all away—
         Looked out to see the stranger oar
         Upon their waters play.

         Deer-Island's rocks and fir-trees threw
         Their sunset-shadows o'er them,
         And Newbury's spire and weathercock
         Peered o'er the pines before them.

         Around the Black Rocks, on their left,
         The marsh lay broad and green;
         And on their right, with dwarf shrubs crowned,
         Plum Island's hills were seen.

         With skilful hand and wary eye
         The harbor-bar was crossed;
         A plaything of the restless wave,
         The boat on ocean tossed.

         The glory of the sunset heaven
         On land and water lay;
         On the steep hills of Agawam,
         On cape, and bluff, and bay.

         They passed the gray rocks of Cape Ann,
         And Gloucester's harbor-bar;
         The watch-fire of the garrison
         Shone like a setting star.

         How brightly broke the morning
         On Massachusetts Bay!
         Blue wave, and bright green island,
         Rejoicing in the day.

         On passed the bark in safety
         Round isle and headland steep;
         No tempest broke above them,
         No fog-cloud veiled the deep.

         Far round the bleak and stormy Cape
         The venturous Macy passed,
         And on Nantucket's naked isle
         Drew up his boat at last.

         And how, in log-built cabin,
         They braved the rough sea-weather;
         And there, in peace and quietness,
         Went down life's vale together;

         How others drew around them,
         And how their fishing sped,
         Until to every wind of heaven
         Nantucket's sails were spread;

         How pale Want alternated
         With Plenty's golden smile;
         Behold, is it not written
         In the annals of the isle?

         And yet that isle remaineth
         A refuge of the free,
         As when true-hearted Macy
         Beheld it from the sea.

         Free as the winds that winnow
         Her shrubless hills of sand,
         Free as the waves that batter
         Along her yielding land.

         Than hers, at duty's summons,
         No loftier spirit stirs,
         Nor falls o'er human suffering
         A readier tear then hers.

         God bless the sea-beat island!
         And grant forevermore,
         That charity and freedom dwell
         As now upon her shore!

         1841.

## THE KNIGHT OF ST. JOHN.

         ERE down yon blue Carpathian hills
         The sun shall sink again,
         Farewell to life and all its ills,
         Farewell to cell and chain!

         These prison shades are dark and cold,
         But, darker far than they,
         The shadow of a sorrow old
         Is on my heart alway.

         For since the day when Warkworth wood
         Closed o'er my steed, and I,
         An alien from my name and blood,
         A weed cast out to die,—

         When, looking back in sunset light,
         I saw her turret gleam,
         And from its casement, far and white,
         Her sign of farewell stream,

         Like one who, from some desert shore,
         Doth home's green isles descry,
         And, vainly longing, gazes o'er
         The waste of wave and sky;

         So from the desert of my fate
         I gaze across the past;
         Forever on life's dial-plate
         The shade is backward cast!

         I've wandered wide from shore to shore,
         I've knelt at many a shrine;
         And bowed me to the rocky floor
         Where Bethlehem's tapers shine;

         And by the Holy Sepulchre
         I've pledged my knightly sword
         To Christ, His blessed Church, and her,
         The Mother of our Lord.

         Oh, vain the vow, and vain the strife!
         How vain do all things seem!
         My soul is in the past, and life
         To-day is but a dream.

         In vain the penance strange and long,
         And hard for flesh to bear;
         The prayer, the fasting, and the thong,
         And sackcloth shirt of hair.

         The eyes of memory will not sleep,
         Its ears are open still;
         And vigils with the past they keep
         Against my feeble will.

         And still the loves and joys of old
         Do evermore uprise;
         I see the flow of locks of gold,
         The shine of loving eyes!

         Ah me! upon another's breast
         Those golden locks recline;
         I see upon another rest
         The glance that once was mine.

         "O faithless priest!  O perjured knight!"
         I hear the Master cry;
         "Shut out the vision from thy sight,
         Let Earth and Nature die.

         "The Church of God is now thy spouse,
         And thou the bridegroom art;
         Then let the burden of thy vows
         Crush down thy human heart!"

         In vain! This heart its grief must know,
         Till life itself hath ceased,
         And falls beneath the self-same blow
         The lover and the priest!

         O pitying Mother! souls of light,
         And saints and martyrs old!
         Pray for a weak and sinful knight,
         A suffering man uphold.

         Then let the Paynim work his will,
         And death unbind my chain,
         Ere down yon blue Carpathian hill
         The sun shall fall again.

         1843

## CASSANDRA SOUTHWICK.

In 1658 two young persons, son and daughter of Lawrence Smithwick of Salem, who had himself been imprisoned and deprived of nearly all his property for having entertained Quakers at his house, were fined for non-attendance at church. They being unable to pay the fine, the General Court issued an order empowering "the Treasurer of the County to sell the said persons to any of the English nation of Virginia or Barbadoes, to answer said fines." An attempt was made to carry this order into execution, but no shipmaster was found willing to convey them to the West Indies.

         To the God of all sure mercies let my blessing rise
         to-day,
         From the scoffer and the cruel He hath plucked
         the spoil away;
         Yea, He who cooled the furnace around the faithful
         three,
         And tamed the Chaldean lions, hath set His hand-
         maid free!
         Last night I saw the sunset melt through my prison
         bars,
         Last night across my damp earth-floor fell the pale
         gleam of stars;
         In the coldness and the darkness all through the
         long night-time,
         My grated casement whitened with autumn's early
         rime.
         Alone, in that dark sorrow, hour after hour crept
         by;
         Star after star looked palely in and sank adown
         the sky;
         No sound amid night's stillness, save that which
         seemed to be
         The dull and heavy beating of the pulses of the sea;

         All night I sat unsleeping, for I knew that on the
         morrow
         The ruler and the cruel priest would mock me in
         my sorrow,
         Dragged to their place of market, and bargained
         for and sold,
         Like a lamb before the shambles, like a heifer
         from the fold!

         Oh, the weakness of the flesh was there, the
         shrinking and the shame;
         And the low voice of the Tempter like whispers to
         me came:
         "Why sit'st thou thus forlornly," the wicked
         murmur said,
         "Damp walls thy bower of beauty, cold earth thy
         maiden bed?

         "Where be the smiling faces, and voices soft and
         sweet,
         Seen in thy father's dwelling, heard in the pleasant
         street?
         Where be the youths whose glances, the summer
         Sabbath through,
         Turned tenderly and timidly unto thy father's pew?

         "Why sit'st thou here, Cassandra?-Bethink
         thee with what mirth
         Thy happy schoolmates gather around the warm
         bright hearth;
         How the crimson shadows tremble on foreheads
         white and fair,
         On eyes of merry girlhood, half hid in golden hair.

         "Not for thee the hearth-fire brightens, not for
         thee kind words are spoken,
         Not for thee the nuts of Wenham woods by laughing
         boys are broken;
         No first-fruits of the orchard within thy lap are
         laid,
         For thee no flowers of autumn the youthful hunters
         braid.

         "O weak, deluded maiden!—by crazy fancies
         led,
         With wild and raving railers an evil path to tread;
         To leave a wholesome worship, and teaching pure
         and sound,
         And mate with maniac women, loose-haired and
         sackcloth bound,—

         "Mad scoffers of the priesthood; who mock at
         things divine,
         Who rail against the pulpit, and holy bread and
         wine;
         Sore from their cart-tail scourgings, and from the
         pillory lame,
         Rejoicing in their wretchedness, and glorying in
         their shame.

         "And what a fate awaits thee!—a sadly toiling
         slave,
         Dragging the slowly lengthening chain of bondage
         to the grave!
         Think of thy woman's nature, subdued in hopeless
         thrall,
         The easy prey of any, the scoff and scorn of all!"

         Oh, ever as the Tempter spoke, and feeble Nature's
         fears
         Wrung drop by drop the scalding flow of unavailing
         tears,
         I wrestled down the evil thoughts, and strove in
         silent prayer,
         To feel, O Helper of the weak! that Thou indeed
         wert there!

         I thought of Paul and Silas, within Philippi's cell,
         And how from Peter's sleeping limbs the prison
         shackles fell,
         Till I seemed to hear the trailing of an angel's
         robe of white,
         And to feel a blessed presence invisible to sight.

         Bless the Lord for all his mercies!—for the peace
         and love I felt,
         Like dew of Hermon's holy hill, upon my spirit
         melt;
         When "Get behind me, Satan!" was the language
         of my heart,
         And I felt the Evil Tempter with all his doubts
         depart.

         Slow broke the gray cold morning; again the sunshine
         fell,
         Flecked with the shade of bar and grate within
         my lonely cell;
         The hoar-frost melted on the wall, and upward
         from the street
         Came careless laugh and idle word, and tread of
         passing feet.

         At length the heavy bolts fell back, my door was
         open cast,
         And slowly at the sheriff's side, up the long street
         I passed;
         I heard the murmur round me, and felt, but dared
         not see,
         How, from every door and window, the people
         gazed on me.

         And doubt and fear fell on me, shame burned upon
         my cheek,
         Swam earth and sky around me, my trembling
         limbs grew weak:
         "O Lord! support thy handmaid; and from her
         soul cast out
         The fear of man, which brings a snare, the weakness
         and the doubt."

         Then the dreary shadows scattered, like a cloud in
         morning's breeze,
         And a low deep voice within me seemed whispering
         words like these:
         "Though thy earth be as the iron, and thy heaven
         a brazen wall,
         Trust still His loving-kindness whose power is over
         all."

         We paused at length, where at my feet the sunlit
         waters broke
         On glaring reach of shining beach, and shingly
         wall of rock;
         The merchant-ships lay idly there, in hard clear
         lines on high,
         Tracing with rope and slender spar their network
         on the sky.

         And there were ancient citizens, cloak-wrapped
         and grave and cold,
         And grim and stout sea-captains with faces bronzed
         and old,
         And on his horse, with Rawson, his cruel clerk at
         hand,
         Sat dark and haughty Endicott, the ruler of the
         land.

         And poisoning with his evil words the ruler's ready
         ear,
         The priest leaned o'er his saddle, with laugh and
         scoff and jeer;
         It stirred my soul, and from my lips the seal of
         silence broke,
         As if through woman's weakness a warning spirit
         spoke.

         I cried, "The Lord rebuke thee, thou smiter of the
         meek,
         Thou robber of the righteous, thou trampler of
         the weak!
         Go light the dark, cold hearth-stones,—go turn
         the prison lock
         Of the poor hearts thou hast hunted, thou wolf
         amid the flock!"

         Dark lowered the brows of Endicott, and with a
         deeper red
         O'er Rawson's wine-empurpled cheek the flush of
         anger spread;
         "Good people," quoth the white-lipped priest,
         "heed not her words so wild,
         Her Master speaks within her,—the Devil owns
         his child!"

         But gray heads shook, and young brows knit, the
         while the sheriff read
         That law the wicked rulers against the poor have
         made,
         Who to their house of Rimmon and idol priesthood
         bring
         No bended knee of worship, nor gainful offering.

         Then to the stout sea-captains the sheriff, turning,
         said,—
         "Which of ye, worthy seamen, will take this
         Quaker maid?
         In the Isle of fair Barbadoes, or on Virginia's
         shore,
         You may hold her at a higher price than Indian
         girl or Moor."

         Grim and silent stood the captains; and when
         again he cried,
         "Speak out, my worthy seamen!"—no voice, no
         sign replied;
         But I felt a hard hand press my own, and kind
         words met my ear,—
         "God bless thee, and preserve thee, my gentle girl
         and dear!"

         A weight seemed lifted from my heart, a pitying
         friend was nigh,—
         I felt it in his hard, rough hand, and saw it in his
         eye;
         And when again the sheriff spoke, that voice, so
         kind to me,
         Growled back its stormy answer like the roaring
         of the sea,—

         "Pile my ship with bars of silver, pack with coins
         of Spanish gold,
         From keel-piece up to deck-plank, the roomage of
         her hold,
         By the living God who made me!—I would sooner
         in your bay
         Sink ship and crew and cargo, than bear this child
         away!"

         "Well answered, worthy captain, shame on their
         cruel laws!"
         Ran through the crowd in murmurs loud the people's
         just applause.
         "Like the herdsman of Tekoa, in Israel of old,
         Shall we see the poor and righteous again for
         silver sold?"

         I looked on haughty Endicott; with weapon half-
         way drawn,
         Swept round the throng his lion glare of bitter hate
         and scorn;
         Fiercely he drew his bridle-rein, and turned in
         silence back,
         And sneering priest and baffled clerk rode
         murmuring in his track.

         Hard after them the sheriff looked, in bitterness of
         soul;
         Thrice smote his staff upon the ground, and
         crushed his parchment roll.
         "Good friends," he said, "since both have fled,
         the ruler and the priest,
         Judge ye, if from their further work I be not well
         released."

         Loud was the cheer which, full and clear, swept
         round the silent bay,
         As, with kind words and kinder looks, he bade me
         go my way;
         For He who turns the courses of the streamlet of
         the glen,
         And the river of great waters, had turned the
         hearts of men.

         Oh, at that hour the very earth seemed changed
         beneath my eye,
         A holier wonder round me rose the blue walls of
         the sky,
         A lovelier light on rock and hill and stream and
         woodland lay,
         And softer lapsed on sunnier sands the waters of
         the bay.

         Thanksgiving to the Lord of life! to Him all
         praises be,
         Who from the hands of evil men hath set his hand-
         maid free;
         All praise to Him before whose power the mighty
         are afraid,
         Who takes the crafty in the snare which for the
         poor is laid!

         Sing, O my soul, rejoicingly, on evening's twilight
         calm
         Uplift the loud thanksgiving, pour forth the grateful
         psalm;
         Let all dear hearts with me rejoice, as did the
         saints of old,
         When of the Lord's good angel the rescued Peter
         told.

         And weep and howl, ye evil priests and mighty
         men of wrong,
         The Lord shall smite the proud, and lay His hand
         upon the strong.
         Woe to the wicked rulers in His avenging hour!
         Woe to the wolves who seek the flocks to raven
         and devour!

         But let the humble ones arise, the poor in heart
         be glad,
         And let the mourning ones again with robes of
         praise be clad.
         For He who cooled the furnace, and smoothed the
         stormy wave,
         And tamed the Chaldean lions, is mighty still to
         save!

         1843.

## THE NEW WIFE AND THE OLD.

The following ballad is founded upon one of the marvellous legends connected with the famous General ——, of Hampton, New Hampshire, who was regarded by his neighbors as a Yankee Faust, in league with the adversary. I give the story, as I heard it when a child, from a venerable family visitant.

         DARK the halls, and cold the feast,
         Gone the bridemaids, gone the priest.
         All is over, all is done,
         Twain of yesterday are one!
         Blooming girl and manhood gray,
         Autumn in the arms of May!

         Hushed within and hushed without,
         Dancing feet and wrestlers' shout;
         Dies the bonfire on the hill;
         All is dark and all is still,
         Save the starlight, save the breeze
         Moaning through the graveyard trees,
         And the great sea-waves below,
         Pulse of the midnight beating slow.

         From the brief dream of a bride
         She hath wakened, at his side.
         With half-uttered shriek and start,—
         Feels she not his beating heart?
         And the pressure of his arm,
         And his breathing near and warm?

         Lightly from the bridal bed
         Springs that fair dishevelled head,
         And a feeling, new, intense,
         Half of shame, half innocence,
         Maiden fear and wonder speaks
         Through her lips and changing cheeks.

         From the oaken mantel glowing,
         Faintest light the lamp is throwing
         On the mirror's antique mould,
         High-backed chair, and wainscot old,
         And, through faded curtains stealing,
         His dark sleeping face revealing.

         Listless lies the strong man there,
         Silver-streaked his careless hair;
         Lips of love have left no trace
         On that hard and haughty face;
         And that forehead's knitted thought
         Love's soft hand hath not unwrought.

         "Yet," she sighs, "he loves me well,
         More than these calm lips will tell.
         Stooping to my lowly state,
         He hath made me rich and great,
         And I bless him, though he be
         Hard and stern to all save me!"

         While she speaketh, falls the light
         O'er her fingers small and white;
         Gold and gem, and costly ring
         Back the timid lustre fling,—
         Love's selectest gifts, and rare,
         His proud hand had fastened there.

         Gratefully she marks the glow
         From those tapering lines of snow;
         Fondly o'er the sleeper bending
         His black hair with golden blending,
         In her soft and light caress,
         Cheek and lip together press.

         Ha!—that start of horror! why
         That wild stare and wilder cry,
         Full of terror, full of pain?
         Is there madness in her brain?
         Hark! that gasping, hoarse and low,
         "Spare me,—spare me,—let me go!"

         God have mercy!—icy cold
         Spectral hands her own enfold,
         Drawing silently from them
         Love's fair gifts of gold and gem.
         "Waken! save me!" still as death
         At her side he slumbereth.

         Ring and bracelet all are gone,
         And that ice-cold hand withdrawn;
         But she hears a murmur low,
         Full of sweetness, full of woe,
         Half a sigh and half a moan
         "Fear not! give the dead her own!"

         Ah!—the dead wife's voice she knows!
         That cold hand whose pressure froze,
         Once in warmest life had borne
         Gem and band her own hath worn.
         "Wake thee! wake thee!" Lo, his eyes
         Open with a dull surprise.

         In his arms the strong man folds her,
         Closer to his breast he holds her;
         Trembling limbs his own are meeting,
         And he feels her heart's quick beating
         "Nay, my dearest, why this fear?"
         "Hush!" she saith, "the dead is here!"

         "Nay, a dream,—an idle dream."
         But before the lamp's pale gleam
         Tremblingly her hand she raises.
         There no more the diamond blazes,
         Clasp of pearl, or ring of gold,—
         "Ah!" she sighs, "her hand was cold!"

         Broken words of cheer he saith,
         But his dark lip quivereth,
         And as o'er the past he thinketh,
         From his young wife's arms he shrinketh;
         Can those soft arms round him lie,
         Underneath his dead wife's eye?

         She her fair young head can rest
         Soothed and childlike on his breast,
         And in trustful innocence
         Draw new strength and courage thence;
         He, the proud man, feels within
         But the cowardice of sin!

         She can murmur in her thought
         Simple prayers her mother taught,
         And His blessed angels call,
         Whose great love is over all;
         He, alone, in prayerless pride,
         Meets the dark Past at her side!

         One, who living shrank with dread
         From his look, or word, or tread,
         Unto whom her early grave
         Was as freedom to the slave,
         Moves him at this midnight hour,
         With the dead's unconscious power!

         Ah, the dead, the unforgot!
         From their solemn homes of thought,
         Where the cypress shadows blend
         Darkly over foe and friend,
         Or in love or sad rebuke,
         Back upon the living look.

         And the tenderest ones and weakest,
         Who their wrongs have borne the meekest,
         Lifting from those dark, still places,
         Sweet and sad-remembered faces,
         O'er the guilty hearts behind
         An unwitting triumph find.

         1843

## THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK.

Winnepurkit, otherwise called George, Sachem of Saugus, married a daughter of Passaconaway, the great Pennacook chieftain, in 1662. The wedding took place at Pennacook (now Concord, N. H.), and the ceremonies closed with a great feast. According to the usages of the chiefs, Passaconaway ordered a select number of his men to accompany the newly-married couple to the dwelling of the husband, where in turn there was another great feast. Some time after, the wife of Winnepurkit expressing a desire to visit her father's house was permitted to go, accompanied by a brave escort of her husband's chief men. But when she wished to return, her father sent a messenger to Saugus, informing her husband, and asking him to come and take her away. He returned for answer that he had escorted his wife to her father's house in a style that became a chief, and that now if she wished to return, her father must send her back, in the same way. This Passaconaway refused to do, and it is said that here terminated the connection of his daughter with the Saugus chief.—Vide MORTON'S New Canaan.

         WE had been wandering for many days
         Through the rough northern country. We had seen
         The sunset, with its bars of purple cloud,
         Like a new heaven, shine upward from the lake
         Of Winnepiseogee; and had felt
         The sunrise breezes, midst the leafy isles
         Which stoop their summer beauty to the lips
         Of the bright waters. We had checked our steeds,
         Silent with wonder, where the mountain wall
         Is piled to heaven; and, through the narrow rift
         Of the vast rocks, against whose rugged feet
         Beats the mad torrent with perpetual roar,
         Where noonday is as twilight, and the wind
         Comes burdened with the everlasting moan
         Of forests and of far-off waterfalls,
         We had looked upward where the summer sky,
         Tasselled with clouds light-woven by the sun,
         Sprung its blue arch above the abutting crags
         O'er-roofing the vast portal of the land
         Beyond the wall of mountains. We had passed
         The high source of the Saco; and bewildered
         In the dwarf spruce-belts of the Crystal Hills,
         Had heard above us, like a voice in the cloud,
         The horn of Fabyan sounding; and atop
         Of old Agioochook had seen the mountains'
         Piled to the northward, shagged with wood, and thick
         As meadow mole-hills,—the far sea of Casco,
         A white gleam on the horizon of the east;
         Fair lakes, embosomed in the woods and hills;
         Moosehillock's mountain range, and Kearsarge
         Lifting his granite forehead to the sun!

         And we had rested underneath the oaks
         Shadowing the bank, whose grassy spires are shaken
         By the perpetual beating of the falls
         Of the wild Ammonoosuc. We had tracked
         The winding Pemigewasset, overhung
         By beechen shadows, whitening down its rocks,
         Or lazily gliding through its intervals,
         From waving rye-fields sending up the gleam
         Of sunlit waters. We had seen the moon
         Rising behind Umbagog's eastern pines,
         Like a great Indian camp-fire; and its beams
         At midnight spanning with a bridge of silver
         The Merrimac by Uncanoonuc's falls.

         There were five souls of us whom travel's chance
         Had thrown together in these wild north hills
         A city lawyer, for a month escaping
         From his dull office, where the weary eye
         Saw only hot brick walls and close thronged streets;
         Briefless as yet, but with an eye to see
         Life's sunniest side, and with a heart to take
         Its chances all as godsends; and his brother,
         Pale from long pulpit studies, yet retaining
         The warmth and freshness of a genial heart,
         Whose mirror of the beautiful and true,
         In Man and Nature, was as yet undimmed
         By dust of theologic strife, or breath
         Of sect, or cobwebs of scholastic lore;
         Like a clear crystal calm of water, taking
         The hue and image of o'erleaning flowers,
         Sweet human faces, white clouds of the noon,
         Slant starlight glimpses through the dewy leaves,
         And tenderest moonrise. 'T was, in truth, a study,
         To mark his spirit, alternating between
         A decent and professional gravity
         And an irreverent mirthfulness, which often
         Laughed in the face of his divinity,
         Plucked off the sacred ephod, quite unshrined
         The oracle, and for the pattern priest
         Left us the man. A shrewd, sagacious merchant,
         To whom the soiled sheet found in Crawford's inn,
         Giving the latest news of city stocks
         And sales of cotton, had a deeper meaning
         Than the great presence of the awful mountains
         Glorified by the sunset; and his daughter,
         A delicate flower on whom had blown too long
         Those evil winds, which, sweeping from the ice
         And winnowing the fogs of Labrador,
         Shed their cold blight round Massachusetts Bay,
         With the same breath which stirs Spring's opening leaves
         And lifts her half-formed flower-bell on its stem,
         Poisoning our seaside atmosphere.

         It chanced that as we turned upon our homeward way,
         A drear northeastern storm came howling up
         The valley of the Saco; and that girl
         Who had stood with us upon Mount Washington,
         Her brown locks ruffled by the wind which whirled
         In gusts around its sharp, cold pinnacle,
         Who had joined our gay trout-fishing in the streams
         Which lave that giant's feet; whose laugh was heard
         Like a bird's carol on the sunrise breeze
         Which swelled our sail amidst the lake's green islands,
         Shrank from its harsh, chill breath, and visibly drooped
         Like a flower in the frost. So, in that quiet inn
         Which looks from Conway on the mountains piled
         Heavily against the horizon of the north,
         Like summer thunder-clouds, we made our home
         And while the mist hung over dripping hills,
         And the cold wind-driven rain-drops all day long
         Beat their sad music upon roof and pane,
         We strove to cheer our gentle invalid.

         The lawyer in the pauses of the storm
         Went angling down the Saco, and, returning,
         Recounted his adventures and mishaps;
         Gave us the history of his scaly clients,
         Mingling with ludicrous yet apt citations
         Of barbarous law Latin, passages
         From Izaak Walton's Angler, sweet and fresh
         As the flower-skirted streams of Staffordshire,
         Where, under aged trees, the southwest wind
         Of soft June mornings fanned the thin, white hair
         Of the sage fisher. And, if truth be told,
         Our youthful candidate forsook his sermons,
         His commentaries, articles and creeds,
         For the fair page of human loveliness,
         The missal of young hearts, whose sacred text
         Is music, its illumining, sweet smiles.
         He sang the songs she loved; and in his low,
         Deep, earnest voice, recited many a page
         Of poetry, the holiest, tenderest lines
         Of the sad bard of Olney, the sweet songs,
         Simple and beautiful as Truth and Nature,
         Of him whose whitened locks on Rydal Mount
         Are lifted yet by morning breezes blowing
         From the green hills, immortal in his lays.
         And for myself, obedient to her wish,
         I searched our landlord's proffered library,—
         A well-thumbed Bunyan, with its nice wood pictures
         Of scaly fiends and angels not unlike them;
         Watts' unmelodious psalms; Astrology's
         Last home, a musty pile of almanacs,
         And an old chronicle of border wars
         And Indian history. And, as I read
         A story of the marriage of the Chief
         Of Saugus to the dusky Weetamoo,
         Daughter of Passaconaway, who dwelt
         In the old time upon the Merrimac,
         Our fair one, in the playful exercise
         Of her prerogative,—the right divine
         Of youth and beauty,—bade us versify
         The legend, and with ready pencil sketched
         Its plan and outlines, laughingly assigning
         To each his part, and barring our excuses
         With absolute will. So, like the cavaliers
         Whose voices still are heard in the Romance
         Of silver-tongued Boccaccio, on the banks
         Of Arno, with soft tales of love beguiling
         The ear of languid beauty, plague-exiled
         From stately Florence, we rehearsed our rhymes
         To their fair auditor, and shared by turns
         Her kind approval and her playful censure.

         It may be that these fragments owe alone
         To the fair setting of their circumstances,—
         The associations of time, scene, and audience,—
         Their place amid the pictures which fill up
         The chambers of my memory. Yet I trust
         That some, who sigh, while wandering in thought,
         Pilgrims of Romance o'er the olden world,
         That our broad land,—our sea-like lakes and mountains
         Piled to the clouds, our rivers overhung
         By forests which have known no other change
         For ages than the budding and the fall
         Of leaves, our valleys lovelier than those
         Which the old poets sang of,—should but figure
         On the apocryphal chart of speculation
         As pastures, wood-lots, mill-sites, with the privileges,
         Rights, and appurtenances, which make up
         A Yankee Paradise, unsung, unknown,
         To beautiful tradition; even their names,
         Whose melody yet lingers like the last
         Vibration of the red man's requiem,
         Exchanged for syllables significant,
         Of cotton-mill and rail-car, will look kindly
         Upon this effort to call up the ghost
         Of our dim Past, and listen with pleased ear
         To the responses of the questioned Shade.

## I. THE MERRIMAC.

         O child of that white-crested mountain whose
         springs
         Gush forth in the shade of the cliff-eagle's
         wings,
         Down whose slopes to the lowlands thy wild waters
         shine,
         Leaping gray walls of rock, flashing through the
         dwarf pine;
         From that cloud-curtained cradle so cold and so
         lone,
         From the arms of that wintry-locked mother of
         stone,
         By hills hung with forests, through vales wide and
         free,
         Thy mountain-born brightness glanced down to the
         sea.

         No bridge arched thy waters save that where the
         trees
         Stretched their long arms above thee and kissed in
         the breeze:
         No sound save the lapse of the waves on thy
         shores,
         The plunging of otters, the light dip of oars.

         Green-tufted, oak-shaded, by Amoskeag's fall
         Thy twin Uncanoonucs rose stately and tall,
         Thy Nashua meadows lay green and unshorn,
         And the hills of Pentucket were tasselled with
         corn.
         But thy Pennacook valley was fairer than these,
         And greener its grasses and taller its trees,
         Ere the sound of an axe in the forest had rung,
         Or the mower his scythe in the meadows had
         swung.

         In their sheltered repose looking out from the
         wood
         The bark-builded wigwams of Pennacook stood;
         There glided the corn-dance, the council-fire shone,
         And against the red war-post the hatchet was
         thrown.

         There the old smoked in silence their pipes, and
         the young
         To the pike and the white-perch their baited lines
         flung;
         There the boy shaped his arrows, and there the
         shy maid
         Wove her many-hued baskets and bright wampum
         braid.

         O Stream of the Mountains! if answer of thine
         Could rise from thy waters to question of mine,
         Methinks through the din of thy thronged banks
         a moan
         Of sorrow would swell for the days which have
         gone.

         Not for thee the dull jar of the loom and the wheel,
         The gliding of shuttles, the ringing of steel;
         But that old voice of waters, of bird and of breeze,
         The dip of the wild-fowl, the rustling of trees.

## II. THE BASHABA.

         Lift we the twilight curtains of the Past,
         And, turning from familiar sight and sound,
         Sadly and full of reverence let us cast
         A glance upon Tradition's shadowy ground,
         Led by the few pale lights which, glimmering round
         That dim, strange land of Eld, seem dying fast;
         And that which history gives not to the eye,
         The faded coloring of Time's tapestry,
         Let Fancy, with her dream-dipped brush, supply.

         Roof of bark and walls of pine,
         Through whose chinks the sunbeams shine,
         Tracing many a golden line
         On the ample floor within;
         Where, upon that earth-floor stark,
         Lay the gaudy mats of bark,
         With the bear's hide, rough and dark,
         And the red-deer's skin.

         Window-tracery, small and slight,
         Woven of the willow white,
         Lent a dimly checkered light;
         And the night-stars glimmered down,
         Where the lodge-fire's heavy smoke,
         Slowly through an opening broke,
         In the low roof, ribbed with oak,
         Sheathed with hemlock brown.

         Gloomed behind the changeless shade
         By the solemn pine-wood made;
         Through the rugged palisade,
         In the open foreground planted,
         Glimpses came of rowers rowing,
         Stir of leaves and wild-flowers blowing,
         Steel-like gleams of water flowing,
         In the sunlight slanted.

         Here the mighty Bashaba
         Held his long-unquestioned sway,
         From the White Hills, far away,
         To the great sea's sounding shore;
         Chief of chiefs, his regal word
         All the river Sachems heard,
         At his call the war-dance stirred,
         Or was still once more.

         There his spoils of chase and war,
         Jaw of wolf and black bear's paw,
         Panther's skin and eagle's claw,
         Lay beside his axe and bow;
         And, adown the roof-pole hung,
         Loosely on a snake-skin strung,
         In the smoke his scalp-locks swung
         Grimly to and fro.

         Nightly down the river going,
         Swifter was the hunter's rowing,
         When he saw that lodge-fire, glowing
         O'er the waters still and red;
         And the squaw's dark eye burned brighter,
         And she drew her blanket tighter,
         As, with quicker step and lighter,
         From that door she fled.

         For that chief had magic skill,
         And a Panisee's dark will,
         Over powers of good and ill,
         Powers which bless and powers which ban;
         Wizard lord of Pennacook,
         Chiefs upon their war-path shook,
         When they met the steady look
         Of that wise dark man.

         Tales of him the gray squaw told,
         When the winter night-wind cold
         Pierced her blanket's thickest fold,
         And her fire burned low and small,
         Till the very child abed,
         Drew its bear-skin over bead,
         Shrinking from the pale lights shed
         On the trembling wall.

         All the subtle spirits hiding
         Under earth or wave, abiding
         In the caverned rock, or riding
         Misty clouds or morning breeze;
         Every dark intelligence,
         Secret soul, and influence
         Of all things which outward sense
         Feels, or bears, or sees,—

         These the wizard's skill confessed,
         At his bidding banned or blessed,
         Stormful woke or lulled to rest
         Wind and cloud, and fire and flood;
         Burned for him the drifted snow,
         Bade through ice fresh lilies blow,
         And the leaves of summer grow
         Over winter's wood!

         Not untrue that tale of old!
         Now, as then, the wise and bold
         All the powers of Nature hold
         Subject to their kingly will;
         From the wondering crowds ashore,
         Treading life's wild waters o'er,
         As upon a marble floor,
         Moves the strong man still.

         Still, to such, life's elements
         With their sterner laws dispense,
         And the chain of consequence
         Broken in their pathway lies;
         Time and change their vassals making,
         Flowers from icy pillows waking,
         Tresses of the sunrise shaking
         Over midnight skies.
         Still, to th' earnest soul, the sun
         Rests on towered Gibeon,
         And the moon of Ajalon
         Lights the battle-grounds of life;
         To his aid the strong reverses
         Hidden powers and giant forces,
         And the high stars, in their courses,
         Mingle in his strife!

## III. THE DAUGHTER.

         The soot-black brows of men, the yell
         Of women thronging round the bed,
         The tinkling charm of ring and shell,
         The Powah whispering o'er the dead!

         All these the Sachem's home had known,
         When, on her journey long and wild
         To the dim World of Souls, alone,
         In her young beauty passed the mother of his child.

         Three bow-shots from the Sachem's dwelling
         They laid her in the walnut shade,
         Where a green hillock gently swelling
         Her fitting mound of burial made.
         There trailed the vine in summer hours,
         The tree-perched squirrel dropped his shell,—
         On velvet moss and pale-hued flowers,
         Woven with leaf and spray, the softened sunshine fell!

         The Indian's heart is hard and cold,
         It closes darkly o'er its care,
         And formed in Nature's sternest mould,
         Is slow to feel, and strong to bear.
         The war-paint on the Sachem's face,
         Unwet with tears, shone fierce and red,
         And still, in battle or in chase,
         Dry leaf and snow-rime crisped beneath his
         foremost tread.

         Yet when her name was heard no more,
         And when the robe her mother gave,
         And small, light moccasin she wore,
         Had slowly wasted on her grave,
         Unmarked of him the dark maids sped
         Their sunset dance and moonlit play;
         No other shared his lonely bed,
         No other fair young head upon his bosom lay.

         A lone, stern man. Yet, as sometimes
         The tempest-smitten tree receives
         From one small root the sap which climbs
         Its topmost spray and crowning leaves,
         So from his child the Sachem drew
         A life of Love and Hope, and felt
         His cold and rugged nature through
         The softness and the warmth of her young
         being melt.

         A laugh which in the woodland rang
         Bemocking April's gladdest bird,—
         A light and graceful form which sprang
         To meet him when his step was heard,—
         Eyes by his lodge-fire flashing dark,
         Small fingers stringing bead and shell
         Or weaving mats of bright-hued bark,—
         With these the household-god (3) had graced
         his wigwam well.

         Child of the forest! strong and free,
         Slight-robed, with loosely flowing hair,
         She swam the lake or climbed the tree,
         Or struck the flying bird in air.
         O'er the heaped drifts of winter's moon
         Her snow-shoes tracked the hunter's way;
         And dazzling in the summer noon
         The blade of her light oar threw off its shower
         of spray!

         Unknown to her the rigid rule,
         The dull restraint, the chiding frown,
         The weary torture of the school,
         The taming of wild nature down.
         Her only lore, the legends told
         Around the hunter's fire at night;
         Stars rose and set, and seasons rolled,
         Flowers bloomed and snow-flakes fell, unquestioned
         in her sight.

         Unknown to her the subtle skill
         With which the artist-eye can trace
         In rock and tree and lake and hill
         The outlines of divinest grace;
         Unknown the fine soul's keen unrest,
         Which sees, admires, yet yearns alway;
         Too closely on her mother's breast
         To note her smiles of love the child of Nature lay!

         It is enough for such to be
         Of common, natural things a part,
         To feel, with bird and stream and tree,
         The pulses of the same great heart;
         But we, from Nature long exiled,
         In our cold homes of Art and Thought
         Grieve like the stranger-tended child,
         Which seeks its mother's arms, and sees but feels
         them not.

         The garden rose may richly bloom
         In cultured soil and genial air,
         To cloud the light of Fashion's room
         Or droop in Beauty's midnight hair;
         In lonelier grace, to sun and dew
         The sweetbrier on the hillside shows
         Its single leaf and fainter hue,
         Untrained and wildly free, yet still a sister rose!

         Thus o'er the heart of Weetamoo
         Their mingling shades of joy and ill
         The instincts of her nature threw;
         The savage was a woman still.
         Midst outlines dim of maiden schemes,
         Heart-colored prophecies of life,
         Rose on the ground of her young dreams
         The light of a new home, the lover and the wife.

## IV. THE WEDDING.

         Cool and dark fell the autumn night,
         But the Bashaba's wigwam glowed with light,
         For down from its roof, by green withes hung,
         Flaring and smoking the pine-knots swung.

         And along the river great wood-fires
         Shot into the night their long, red spires,
         Showing behind the tall, dark wood,
         Flashing before on the sweeping flood.

         In the changeful wind, with shimmer and shade,
         Now high, now low, that firelight played,
         On tree-leaves wet with evening dews,
         On gliding water and still canoes.

         The trapper that night on Turee's brook,
         And the weary fisher on Contoocook,
         Saw over the marshes, and through the pine,
         And down on the river, the dance-lights shine.
         For the Saugus Sachem had come to woo
         The Bashaba's daughter Weetamoo,
         And laid at her father's feet that night
         His softest furs and wampum white.

         From the Crystal Hills to the far southeast
         The river Sagamores came to the feast;
         And chiefs whose homes the sea-winds shook
         Sat down on the mats of Pennacook.

         They came from Sunapee's shore of rock,
         From the snowy sources of Snooganock,
         And from rough Coos whose thick woods shake
         Their pine-cones in Umbagog Lake.

         From Ammonoosuc's mountain pass,
         Wild as his home, came Chepewass;
         And the Keenomps of the bills which throw
         Their shade on the Smile of Manito.

         With pipes of peace and bows unstrung,
         Glowing with paint came old and young,
         In wampum and furs and feathers arrayed,
         To the dance and feast the Bashaba made.

         Bird of the air and beast of the field,
         All which the woods and the waters yield,
         On dishes of birch and hemlock piled,
         Garnished and graced that banquet wild.

         Steaks of the brown bear fat and large
         From the rocky slopes of the Kearsarge;
         Delicate trout from Babboosuck brook,
         And salmon speared in the Contoocook;

         Squirrels which fed where nuts fell thick
         in the gravelly bed of the Otternic;
         And small wild-hens in reed-snares caught
         from the banks of Sondagardee brought;

         Pike and perch from the Suncook taken,
         Nuts from the trees of the Black Hills shaken,
         Cranberries picked in the Squamscot bog,
         And grapes from the vines of Piscataquog:

         And, drawn from that great stone vase which stands
         In the river scooped by a spirit's hands,(4)
         Garnished with spoons of shell and horn,
         Stood the birchen dishes of smoking corn.

         Thus bird of the air and beast of the field,
         All which the woods and the waters yield,
         Furnished in that olden day
         The bridal feast of the Bashaba.

         And merrily when that feast was done
         On the fire-lit green the dance begun,
         With squaws' shrill stave, and deeper hum
         Of old men beating the Indian drum.

         Painted and plumed, with scalp-locks flowing,
         And red arms tossing and black eyes glowing,
         Now in the light and now in the shade
         Around the fires the dancers played.

         The step was quicker, the song more shrill,
         And the beat of the small drums louder still
         Whenever within the circle drew
         The Saugus Sachem and Weetamoo.

         The moons of forty winters had shed
         Their snow upon that chieftain's head,
         And toil and care and battle's chance
         Had seamed his hard, dark countenance.

         A fawn beside the bison grim,—
         Why turns the bride's fond eye on him,
         In whose cold look is naught beside
         The triumph of a sullen pride?

         Ask why the graceful grape entwines
         The rough oak with her arm of vines;
         And why the gray rock's rugged cheek
         The soft lips of the mosses seek.

         Why, with wise instinct, Nature seems
         To harmonize her wide extremes,
         Linking the stronger with the weak,
         The haughty with the soft and meek!

## V. THE NEW HOME.

         A wild and broken landscape, spiked with firs,
         Roughening the bleak horizon's northern edge;
         Steep, cavernous hillsides, where black hemlock
         spurs
         And sharp, gray splinters of the wind-swept
         ledge
         Pierced the thin-glazed ice, or bristling rose,
         Where the cold rim of the sky sunk down upon
         the snows.

         And eastward cold, wide marshes stretched away,
         Dull, dreary flats without a bush or tree,
         O'er-crossed by icy creeks, where twice a day
         Gurgled the waters of the moon-struck sea;
         And faint with distance came the stifled roar,
         The melancholy lapse of waves on that low shore.

         No cheerful village with its mingling smokes,
         No laugh of children wrestling in the snow,
         No camp-fire blazing through the hillside oaks,
         No fishers kneeling on the ice below;
         Yet midst all desolate things of sound and view,
         Through the long winter moons smiled dark-eyed
         Weetamoo.

         Her heart had found a home; and freshly all
         Its beautiful affections overgrew
         Their rugged prop. As o'er some granite wall
         Soft vine-leaves open to the moistening dew
         And warm bright sun, the love of that young wife
         Found on a hard cold breast the dew and warmth
         of life.

         The steep, bleak hills, the melancholy shore,
         The long, dead level of the marsh between,
         A coloring of unreal beauty wore
         Through the soft golden mist of young love seen.
         For o'er those hills and from that dreary plain,
         Nightly she welcomed home her hunter chief again.

         No warmth of heart, no passionate burst of feeling,
         Repaid her welcoming smile and parting kiss,
         No fond and playful dalliance half concealing,
         Under the guise of mirth, its tenderness;

         But, in their stead, the warrior's settled pride,
         And vanity's pleased smile with homage satisfied.

         Enough for Weetamoo, that she alone
         Sat on his mat and slumbered at his side;
         That he whose fame to her young ear had flown
         Now looked upon her proudly as his bride;
         That he whose name the Mohawk trembling heard
         Vouchsafed to her at times a kindly look or word.

         For she had learned the maxims of her race,
         Which teach the woman to become a slave,
         And feel herself the pardonless disgrace
         Of love's fond weakness in the wise and brave,—
         The scandal and the shame which they incur,
         Who give to woman all which man requires of her.

         So passed the winter moons. The sun at last
         Broke link by link the frost chain of the rills,
         And the warm breathings of the southwest passed
         Over the hoar rime of the Saugus hills;
         The gray and desolate marsh grew green once more,
         And the birch-tree's tremulous shade fell round the
         Sachem's door.

         Then from far Pennacook swift runners came,
         With gift and greeting for the Saugus chief;
         Beseeching him in the great Sachem's name,
         That, with the coming of the flower and leaf,
         The song of birds, the warm breeze and the rain,
         Young Weetamoo might greet her lonely sire again.

         And Winnepurkit called his chiefs together,
         And a grave council in his wigwam met,
         Solemn and brief in words, considering whether
         The rigid rules of forest etiquette
         Permitted Weetamoo once more to look
         Upon her father's face and green-banked
         Pennacook.

         With interludes of pipe-smoke and strong water,
         The forest sages pondered, and at length,
         Concluded in a body to escort her
         Up to her father's home of pride and strength,
         Impressing thus on Pennacook a sense
         Of Winnepurkit's power and regal consequence.

         So through old woods which Aukeetamit's(5) hand,
         A soft and many-shaded greenness lent,
         Over high breezy hills, and meadow land
         Yellow with flowers, the wild procession went,
         Till, rolling down its wooded banks between,
         A broad, clear, mountain stream, the Merrimac
         was seen.

         The hunter leaning on his bow undrawn,
         The fisher lounging on the pebbled shores,
         Squaws in the clearing dropping the seed-corn,
         Young children peering through the wigwam doors,
         Saw with delight, surrounded by her train
         Of painted Saugus braves, their Weetamoo again.

## VI. AT PENNACOOK.

         The hills are dearest which our childish feet
         Have climbed the earliest; and the streams most sweet
         Are ever those at which our young lips drank,
         Stooped to their waters o'er the grassy bank.

         Midst the cold dreary sea-watch, Home's hearth-light
         Shines round the helmsman plunging through the night;
         And still, with inward eye, the traveller sees
         In close, dark, stranger streets his native trees.

         The home-sick dreamer's brow is nightly fanned
         By breezes whispering of his native land,
         And on the stranger's dim and dying eye
         The soft, sweet pictures of his childhood lie.

         Joy then for Weetamoo, to sit once more
         A child upon her father's wigwam floor!
         Once more with her old fondness to beguile
         From his cold eye the strange light of a smile.

         The long, bright days of summer swiftly passed,
         The dry leaves whirled in autumn's rising blast,
         And evening cloud and whitening sunrise rime
         Told of the coming of the winter-time.

         But vainly looked, the while, young Weetamoo,
         Down the dark river for her chief's canoe;
         No dusky messenger from Saugus brought
         The grateful tidings which the young wife sought.

         At length a runner from her father sent,
         To Winnepurkit's sea-cooled wigwam went
         "Eagle of Saugus,—in the woods the dove
         Mourns for the shelter of thy wings of love."

         But the dark chief of Saugus turned aside
         In the grim anger of hard-hearted pride;
         "I bore her as became a chieftain's daughter,
         Up to her home beside the gliding water.

         If now no more a mat for her is found
         Of all which line her father's wigwam round,
         Let Pennacook call out his warrior train,
         And send her back with wampum gifts again."

         The baffled runner turned upon his track,
         Bearing the words of Winnepurkit back.
         "Dog of the Marsh," cried Pennacook, "no more
         Shall child of mine sit on his wigwam floor.

         "Go, let him seek some meaner squaw to spread
         The stolen bear-skin of his beggar's bed;
         Son of a fish-hawk! let him dig his clams
         For some vile daughter of the Agawams,

         "Or coward Nipmucks! may his scalp dry black
         In Mohawk smoke, before I send her back."
         He shook his clenched hand towards the ocean wave,
         While hoarse assent his listening council gave.

         Alas poor bride! can thy grim sire impart
         His iron hardness to thy woman's heart?
         Or cold self-torturing pride like his atone
         For love denied and life's warm beauty flown?

         On Autumn's gray and mournful grave the snow
         Hung its white wreaths; with stifled voice and low
         The river crept, by one vast bridge o'er-crossed,
         Built by the boar-locked artisan of Frost.

         And many a moon in beauty newly born
         Pierced the red sunset with her silver horn,
         Or, from the east, across her azure field
         Rolled the wide brightness of her full-orbed shield.

         Yet Winnepurkit came not,—on the mat
         Of the scorned wife her dusky rival sat;
         And he, the while, in Western woods afar,
         Urged the long chase, or trod the path of war.

         Dry up thy tears, young daughter of a chief!
         Waste not on him the sacredness of grief;
         Be the fierce spirit of thy sire thine own,
         His lips of scorning, and his heart of stone.

         What heeds the warrior of a hundred fights,
         The storm-worn watcher through long hunting nights,
         Cold, crafty, proud of woman's weak distress,
         Her home-bound grief and pining loneliness?

## VII. THE DEPARTURE.

         The wild March rains had fallen fast and long
         The snowy mountains of the North among,
         Making each vale a watercourse, each hill
         Bright with the cascade of some new-made rill.

         Gnawed by the sunbeams, softened by the rain,
         Heaved underneath by the swollen current's strain,
         The ice-bridge yielded, and the Merrimac
         Bore the huge ruin crashing down its track.

         On that strong turbid water, a small boat
         Guided by one weak hand was seen to float;
         Evil the fate which loosed it from the shore,
         Too early voyager with too frail an oar!

         Down the vexed centre of that rushing tide,
         The thick huge ice-blocks threatening either side,
         The foam-white rocks of Amoskeag in view,
         With arrowy swiftness sped that light canoe.

         The trapper, moistening his moose's meat
         On the wet bank by Uncanoonuc's feet,
         Saw the swift boat flash down the troubled stream;
         Slept he, or waked he? was it truth or dream?

         The straining eye bent fearfully before,
         The small hand clenching on the useless oar,
         The bead-wrought blanket trailing o'er the water—
         He knew them all—woe for the Sachem's daughter!

         Sick and aweary of her lonely life,
         Heedless of peril, the still faithful wife
         Had left her mother's grave, her father's door,
         To seek the wigwam of her chief once more.

         Down the white rapids like a sear leaf whirled,
         On the sharp rocks and piled-up ices hurled,
         Empty and broken, circled the canoe
         In the vexed pool below—but where was Weetamoo.

## VIII. SONG OF INDIAN WOMEN.

         The Dark eye has left us,
         The Spring-bird has flown;
         On the pathway of spirits
         She wanders alone.
         The song of the wood-dove has died on our shore
         Mat wonck kunna-monee!(6) We hear it no more!

         O dark water Spirit
         We cast on thy wave
         These furs which may never
         Hang over her grave;
         Bear down to the lost one the robes that she wore
         Mat wonck kunna-monee! We see her no more!

         Of the strange land she walks in
         No Powah has told:
         It may burn with the sunshine,
         Or freeze with the cold.
         Let us give to our lost one the robes that she wore:
         Mat wonck kunna-monee! We see her no more!

         The path she is treading
         Shall soon be our own;
         Each gliding in shadow
         Unseen and alone!
         In vain shall we call on the souls gone before:
         Mat wonck kunna-monee! They hear us no more!

         O mighty Sowanna!(7)
         Thy gateways unfold,
         From thy wigwam of sunset
         Lift curtains of gold!

         Take home the poor Spirit whose journey is o'er
         Mat wonck kunna-monee! We see her no more!

         So sang the Children of the Leaves beside
         The broad, dark river's coldly flowing tide;
         Now low, now harsh, with sob-like pause and swell,
         On the high wind their voices rose and fell.
         Nature's wild music,—sounds of wind-swept trees,
         The scream of birds, the wailing of the breeze,
         The roar of waters, steady, deep, and strong,—
         Mingled and murmured in that farewell song.

         1844.

## BARCLAY OF URY.

Among the earliest converts to the doctrines of Friends in Scotland was Barclay of Ury, an old and distinguished soldier, who had fought under Gustavus Adolphus, in Germany. As a Quaker, he became the object of persecution and abuse at the hands of the magistrates and the populace. None bore the indignities of the mob with greater patience and nobleness of soul than this once proud gentleman and soldier. One of his friends, on an occasion of uncommon rudeness, lamented that he should be treated so harshly in his old age who had been so honored before. "I find more satisfaction," said Barclay, "as well as honor, in being thus insulted for my religious principles, than when, a few years ago, it was usual for the magistrates, as I passed the city of Aberdeen, to meet me on the road and conduct me to public entertainment in their hall, and then escort me out again, to gain my favor."

         Up the streets of Aberdeen,
         By the kirk and college green,
         Rode the Laird of Ury;
         Close behind him, close beside,
         Foul of mouth and evil-eyed,
         Pressed the mob in fury.

         Flouted him the drunken churl,
         Jeered at him the serving-girl,
         Prompt to please her master;
         And the begging carlin, late
         Fed and clothed at Ury's gate,
         Cursed him as he passed her.

         Yet, with calm and stately mien,
         Up the streets of Aberdeen
         Came he slowly riding;
         And, to all he saw and heard,
         Answering not with bitter word,
         Turning not for chiding.

         Came a troop with broadswords swinging,
         Bits and bridles sharply ringing,
         Loose and free and froward;
         Quoth the foremost, "Ride him down!
         Push him! prick him! through the town
         Drive the Quaker coward!"

         But from out the thickening crowd
         Cried a sudden voice and loud
         "Barclay! Ho! a Barclay!"
         And the old man at his side
         Saw a comrade, battle tried,
         Scarred and sunburned darkly;

         Who with ready weapon bare,
         Fronting to the troopers there,
         Cried aloud: "God save us,
         Call ye coward him who stood
         Ankle deep in Lutzen's blood,
         With the brave Gustavus?"

         "Nay, I do not need thy sword,
         Comrade mine," said Ury's lord;
         "Put it up, I pray thee
         Passive to His holy will,
         Trust I in my Master still,
         Even though He slay me.

         "Pledges of thy love and faith,
         Proved on many a field of death,
         Not by me are needed."
         Marvelled much that henchman bold,
         That his laird, so stout of old,
         Now so meekly pleaded.

         "Woe's the day!" he sadly said,
         With a slowly shaking head,
         And a look of pity;
         "Ury's honest lord reviled,
         Mock of knave and sport of child,
         In his own good city.

         "Speak the word, and, master mine,
         As we charged on Tilly's(8) line,
         And his Walloon lancers,
         Smiting through their midst we'll teach
         Civil look and decent speech
         To these boyish prancers!"

         "Marvel not, mine ancient friend,
         Like beginning, like the end:"
         Quoth the Laird of Ury;
         "Is the sinful servant more
         Than his gracious Lord who bore
         Bonds and stripes in Jewry?

         "Give me joy that in His name
         I can bear, with patient frame,
         All these vain ones offer;
         While for them He suffereth long,
         Shall I answer wrong with wrong,
         Scoffing with the scoffer?

         "Happier I, with loss of all,
         Hunted, outlawed, held in thrall,
         With few friends to greet me,
         Than when reeve and squire were seen,
         Riding out from Aberdeen,
         With bared heads to meet me.

         "When each goodwife, o'er and o'er,
         Blessed me as I passed her door;
         And the snooded daughter,
         Through her casement glancing down,
         Smiled on him who bore renown
         From red fields of slaughter.

         "Hard to feel the stranger's scoff,
         Hard the old friend's falling off,
         Hard to learn forgiving;
         But the Lord His own rewards,
         And His love with theirs accords,
         Warm and fresh and living.

         "Through this dark and stormy night
         Faith beholds a feeble light
         Up the blackness streaking;
         Knowing God's own time is best,
         In a patient hope I rest
         For the full day-breaking!"

         So the Laird of Ury said,
         Turning slow his horse's head
         Towards the Tolbooth prison,
         Where, through iron gates, he heard
         Poor disciples of the Word
         Preach of Christ arisen!

         Not in vain, Confessor old,
         Unto us the tale is told
         Of thy day of trial;
         Every age on him who strays
         From its broad and beaten ways
         Pours its seven-fold vial.

         Happy he whose inward ear
         Angel comfortings can hear,
         O'er the rabble's laughter;
         And while Hatred's fagots burn,
         Glimpses through the smoke discern
         Of the good hereafter.

         Knowing this, that never yet
         Share of Truth was vainly set
         In the world's wide fallow;
         After hands shall sow the seed,
         After hands from hill and mead
         Reap the harvests yellow.

         Thus, with somewhat of the Seer,
         Must the moral pioneer
         From the Future borrow;
         Clothe the waste with dreams of grain,
         And, on midnight's sky of rain,
         Paint the golden morrow!

## THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA.

A letter-writer from Mexico during the Mexican war, when detailing some of the incidents at the terrible fight of Buena Vista, mentioned that Mexican women were seen hovering near the field of death, for the purpose of giving aid and succor to the wounded. One poor woman was found surrounded by the maimed and suffering of both armies, ministering to the wants of Americans as well as Mexicans, with impartial tenderness.

         SPEAK and tell us, our Ximena, looking northward
         far away,
         O'er the camp of the invaders, o'er the Mexican
         array,
         Who is losing? who is winning? are they far or
         come they near?
         Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither rolls the
         storm we hear.
         Down the hills of Angostura still the storm of
         battle rolls;
         Blood is flowing, men are dying; God have mercy
         on their souls!
         "Who is losing? who is winning?" Over hill
         and over plain,
         I see but smoke of cannon clouding through the
         mountain rain.

         Holy Mother! keep our brothers! Look, Ximena,
         look once more.
         "Still I see the fearful whirlwind rolling darkly
         as before,
         Bearing on, in strange confusion, friend and foeman,
         foot and horse,
         Like some wild and troubled torrent sweeping
         down its mountain course."

         Look forth once more, Ximena! "Ah! the smoke
         has rolled away;
         And I see the Northern rifles gleaming down the
         ranks of gray.
         Hark! that sudden blast of bugles! there the troop
         of Minon wheels;
         There the Northern horses thunder, with the cannon
         at their heels.

         "Jesu, pity I how it thickens I now retreat and
         now advance!
         Bight against the blazing cannon shivers Puebla's
         charging lance!
         Down they go, the brave young riders; horse and
         foot together fall;
         Like a ploughshare in the fallow, through them
         ploughs the Northern ball."

         Nearer came the storm and nearer, rolling fast and
         frightful on!
         Speak, Ximena, speak and tell us, who has lost,
         and who has won?
         Alas! alas! I know not; friend and foe together
         fall,
         O'er the dying rush the living: pray, my sisters,
         for them all!

         "Lo! the wind the smoke is lifting. Blessed
         Mother, save my brain!
         I can see the wounded crawling slowly out from
         heaps of slain.
         Now they stagger, blind and bleeding; now they
         fall, and strive to rise;
         Hasten, sisters, haste and save them, lest they die
         before our eyes!

         "O my hearts love! O my dear one! lay thy
         poor head on my knee;
         Dost thou know the lips that kiss thee? Canst
         thou hear me? canst thou see?
         O my husband, brave and gentle! O my Bernal,
         look once more
         On the blessed cross before thee! Mercy!
         all is o'er!"

         Dry thy tears, my poor Ximena; lay thy dear one
         down to rest;
         Let his hands be meekly folded, lay the cross upon
         his breast;
         Let his dirge be sung hereafter, and his funeral
         masses said;
         To-day, thou poor bereaved one, the living ask thy
         aid.

         Close beside her, faintly moaning, fair and young,
         a soldier lay,
         Torn with shot and pierced with lances, bleeding
         slow his life away;
         But, as tenderly before him the lorn Ximena knelt,
         She saw the Northern eagle shining on his pistol-
         belt.

         With a stifled cry of horror straight she turned
         away her head;
         With a sad and bitter feeling looked she back upon
         her dead;
         But she heard the youth's low moaning, and his
         struggling breath of pain,
         And she raised the cooling water to his parching
         lips again.

         Whispered low the dying soldier, pressed her hand
         and faintly smiled;
         Was that pitying face his mother's? did she watch
         beside her child?
         All his stranger words with meaning her woman's
         heart supplied;
         With her kiss upon his forehead, "Mother!"
         murmured he, and died!

         "A bitter curse upon them, poor boy, who led thee
         forth,
         From some gentle, sad-eyed mother, weeping, lonely,
         in the North!"
         Spake the mournful Mexic woman, as she laid him
         with her dead,
         And turned to soothe the living, and bind the
         wounds which bled.

         "Look forth once more, Ximena!" Like a cloud
         before the wind
         Rolls the battle down the mountains, leaving blood
         and death behind;
         Ah! they plead in vain for mercy; in the dust the
         wounded strive;
         "Hide your faces, holy angels! O thou Christ of
         God, forgive!"

         Sink, O Night, among thy mountains! let the cool,
         gray shadows fall;
         Dying brothers, fighting demons, drop thy curtain
         over all!
         Through the thickening winter twilight, wide apart
         the battle rolled,
         In its sheath the sabre rested, and the cannon's
         lips grew cold.

         But the noble Mexic women still their holy task
         pursued,
         Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn and
         faint and lacking food.
         Over weak and suffering brothers, with a tender
         care they hung,
         And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange
         and Northern tongue.

         Not wholly lost, O Father! is this evil world of
         ours;
         Upward, through its blood and ashes, spring afresh
         the Eden flowers;
         From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity
         send their prayer,
         And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in
         our air!

         1847.

## THE LEGEND OF ST. MARK.

"This legend (to which my attention was called by my friend Charles Sumner), is the subject of a celebrated picture by Tintoretto, of which Mr. Rogers possesses the original sketch. The slave lies on the ground, amid a crowd of spectators, who look on, animated by all the various emotions of sympathy, rage, terror; a woman, in front, with a child in her arms, has always been admired for the lifelike vivacity of her attitude and expression. The executioner holds up the broken implements; St. Mark, with a headlong movement, seems to rush down from heaven in haste to save his worshipper. The dramatic grouping in this picture is wonderful; the coloring, in its gorgeous depth and harmony, is, in Mr. Rogers's sketch, finer than in the picture."—MRS. JAMESON'S Sacred and Legendary Art, I. 154.

         THE day is closing dark and cold,
         With roaring blast and sleety showers;
         And through the dusk the lilacs wear
         The bloom of snow, instead of flowers.

         I turn me from the gloom without,
         To ponder o'er a tale of old;
         A legend of the age of Faith,
         By dreaming monk or abbess told.

         On Tintoretto's canvas lives
         That fancy of a loving heart,
         In graceful lines and shapes of power,
         And hues immortal as his art.

         In Provence (so the story runs)
         There lived a lord, to whom, as slave,
         A peasant-boy of tender years
         The chance of trade or conquest gave.

         Forth-looking from the castle tower,
         Beyond the hills with almonds dark,
         The straining eye could scarce discern
         The chapel of the good St. Mark.

         And there, when bitter word or fare
         The service of the youth repaid,
         By stealth, before that holy shrine,
         For grace to bear his wrong, he prayed.

         The steed stamped at the castle gate,
         The boar-hunt sounded on the hill;
         Why stayed the Baron from the chase,
         With looks so stern, and words so ill?

         "Go, bind yon slave! and let him learn,
         By scath of fire and strain of cord,
         How ill they speed who give dead saints
         The homage due their living lord!"

         They bound him on the fearful rack,
         When, through the dungeon's vaulted dark,
         He saw the light of shining robes,
         And knew the face of good St. Mark.

         Then sank the iron rack apart,
         The cords released their cruel clasp,
         The pincers, with their teeth of fire,
         Fell broken from the torturer's grasp.

         And lo! before the Youth and Saint,
         Barred door and wall of stone gave way;
         And up from bondage and the night
         They passed to freedom and the day!

         O dreaming monk! thy tale is true;
         O painter! true thy pencil's art;
         in tones of hope and prophecy,
         Ye whisper to my listening heart!

         Unheard no burdened heart's appeal
         Moans up to God's inclining ear;
         Unheeded by his tender eye,
         Falls to the earth no sufferer's tear.

         For still the Lord alone is God
         The pomp and power of tyrant man
         Are scattered at his lightest breath,
         Like chaff before the winnower's fan.

         Not always shall the slave uplift
         His heavy hands to Heaven in vain.
         God's angel, like the good St. Mark,
         Comes shining down to break his chain!

         O weary ones! ye may not see
         Your helpers in their downward flight;
         Nor hear the sound of silver wings
         Slow beating through the hush of night!

         But not the less gray Dothan shone,
         With sunbright watchers bending low,
         That Fear's dim eye beheld alone
         The spear-heads of the Syrian foe.

         There are, who, like the Seer of old,
         Can see the helpers God has sent,
         And how life's rugged mountain-side
         Is white with many an angel tent!

         They hear the heralds whom our Lord
         Sends down his pathway to prepare;
         And light, from others hidden, shines
         On their high place of faith and prayer.

         Let such, for earth's despairing ones,
         Hopeless, yet longing to be free,
         Breathe once again the Prophet's prayer
         "Lord, ope their eyes, that they may see!"

         1849.

## KATHLEEN.

This ballad was originally published in my prose work, Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal, as the song of a wandering Milesian schoolmaster. In the seventeenth century, slavery in the New World was by no means confined to the natives of Africa. Political offenders and criminals were transported by the British government to the plantations of Barbadoes and Virginia, where they were sold like cattle in the market. Kidnapping of free and innocent white persons was practised to a considerable extent in the seaports of the United Kingdom.

         O NORAH, lay your basket down,
         And rest your weary hand,
         And come and hear me sing a song
         Of our old Ireland.

         There was a lord of Galaway,
         A mighty lord was he;
         And he did wed a second wife,
         A maid of low degree.

         But he was old, and she was young,
         And so, in evil spite,
         She baked the black bread for his kin,
         And fed her own with white.

         She whipped the maids and starved the kern,
         And drove away the poor;
         "Ah, woe is me!" the old lord said,
         "I rue my bargain sore!"

         This lord he had a daughter fair,
         Beloved of old and young,
         And nightly round the shealing-fires
         Of her the gleeman sung.

         "As sweet and good is young Kathleen
         As Eve before her fall;"
         So sang the harper at the fair,
         So harped he in the hall.

         "Oh, come to me, my daughter dear!
         Come sit upon my knee,
         For looking in your face, Kathleen,
         Your mother's own I see!"

         He smoothed and smoothed her hair away,
         He kissed her forehead fair;
         "It is my darling Mary's brow,
         It is my darling's hair!"

         Oh, then spake up the angry dame,
         "Get up, get up," quoth she,
         "I'll sell ye over Ireland,
         I'll sell ye o'er the sea!"

         She clipped her glossy hair away,
         That none her rank might know;
         She took away her gown of silk,
         And gave her one of tow,

         And sent her down to Limerick town
         And to a seaman sold
         This daughter of an Irish lord
         For ten good pounds in gold.

         The lord he smote upon his breast,
         And tore his beard so gray;
         But he was old, and she was young,
         And so she had her way.

         Sure that same night the Banshee howled
         To fright the evil dame,
         And fairy folks, who loved Kathleen,
         With funeral torches came.

         She watched them glancing through the trees,
         And glimmering down the hill;
         They crept before the dead-vault door,
         And there they all stood still!

         "Get up, old man! the wake-lights shine!"
         "Ye murthering witch," quoth he,
         "So I'm rid of your tongue, I little care
         If they shine for you or me."

         "Oh, whoso brings my daughter back,
         My gold and land shall have!"
         Oh, then spake up his handsome page,
         "No gold nor land I crave!

         "But give to me your daughter dear,
         Give sweet Kathleen to me,
         Be she on sea or be she on land,
         I'll bring her back to thee."

         "My daughter is a lady born,
         And you of low degree,
         But she shall be your bride the day
         You bring her back to me."

         He sailed east, he sailed west,
         And far and long sailed he,
         Until he came to Boston town,
         Across the great salt sea.

         "Oh, have ye seen the young Kathleen,
         The flower of Ireland?
         Ye'll know her by her eyes so blue,
         And by her snow-white hand!"

         Out spake an ancient man, "I know
         The maiden whom ye mean;
         I bought her of a Limerick man,
         And she is called Kathleen.

         "No skill hath she in household work,
         Her hands are soft and white,
         Yet well by loving looks and ways
         She doth her cost requite."

         So up they walked through Boston town,
         And met a maiden fair,
         A little basket on her arm
         So snowy-white and bare.

         "Come hither, child, and say hast thou
         This young man ever seen?"
         They wept within each other's arms,
         The page and young Kathleen.

         "Oh give to me this darling child,
         And take my purse of gold."
         "Nay, not by me," her master said,
         "Shall sweet Kathleen be sold.

         "We loved her in the place of one
         The Lord hath early ta'en;
         But, since her heart's in Ireland,
         We give her back again!"

         Oh, for that same the saints in heaven
         For his poor soul shall pray,
         And Mary Mother wash with tears
         His heresies away.

         Sure now they dwell in Ireland;
         As you go up Claremore
         Ye'll see their castle looking down
         The pleasant Galway shore.

         And the old lord's wife is dead and gone,
         And a happy man is he,
         For he sits beside his own Kathleen,
         With her darling on his knee.

         1849.

## THE WELL OF LOCH MAREE

Pennant, in his Voyage to the Hebrides, describes the holy well of Loch Maree, the waters of which were supposed to effect a miraculous cure of melancholy, trouble, and insanity.

         CALM on the breast of Loch Maree
         A little isle reposes;
         A shadow woven of the oak
         And willow o'er it closes.

         Within, a Druid's mound is seen,
         Set round with stony warders;
         A fountain, gushing through the turf,
         Flows o'er its grassy borders.

         And whoso bathes therein his brow,
         With care or madness burning,
         Feels once again his healthful thought
         And sense of peace returning.

         O restless heart and fevered brain,
         Unquiet and unstable,
         That holy well of Loch Maree
         Is more than idle fable!

         Life's changes vex, its discords stun,
         Its glaring sunshine blindeth,
         And blest is he who on his way
         That fount of healing findeth!

         The shadows of a humbled will
         And contrite heart are o'er it;
         Go read its legend, "TRUST IN GOD,"
         On Faith's white stones before it.

         1850.

## THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS.

The incident upon which this poem is based is related in a note to Bernardin Henri Saint Pierre's Etudes de la Nature. "We arrived at the habitation of the Hermits a little before they sat down to their table, and while they were still at church. J. J. Rousseau proposed to me to offer up our devotions. The hermits were reciting the Litanies of Providence, which are remarkably beautiful. After we had addressed our prayers to God, and the hermits were proceeding to the refectory, Rousseau said to me, with his heart overflowing, 'At this moment I experience what is said in the gospel: Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. There is here a feeling of peace and happiness which penetrates the soul.' I said, 'If Finelon had lived, you would have been a Catholic.' He exclaimed, with tears in his eyes, 'Oh, if Finelon were alive, I would struggle to get into his service, even as a lackey!'" In my sketch of Saint Pierre, it will be seen that I have somewhat antedated the period of his old age. At that time he was not probably more than fifty. In describing him, I have by no means exaggerated his own history of his mental condition at the period of the story. In the fragmentary Sequel to his Studies of Nature, he thus speaks of himself: "The ingratitude of those of whom I had deserved kindness, unexpected family misfortunes, the total loss of my small patrimony through enterprises solely undertaken for the benefit of my country, the debts under which I lay oppressed, the blasting of all my hopes,—these combined calamities made dreadful inroads upon my health and reason. . . . I found it impossible to continue in a room where there was company, especially if the doors were shut. I could not even cross an alley in a public garden, if several persons had got together in it. When alone, my malady subsided. I felt myself likewise at ease in places where I saw children only. At the sight of any one walking up to the place where I was, I felt my whole frame agitated, and retired. I often said to myself, 'My sole study has been to merit well of mankind; why do I fear them?'"

He attributes his improved health of mind and body to the counsels of his friend, J. J. Rousseau. "I renounced," says he, "my books. I threw my eyes upon the works of nature, which spake to all my senses a language which neither time nor nations have it in their power to alter. Thenceforth my histories and my journals were the herbage of the fields and meadows. My thoughts did not go forth painfully after them, as in the case of human systems; but their thoughts, under a thousand engaging forms, quietly sought me. In these I studied, without effort, the laws of that Universal Wisdom which had surrounded me from the cradle, but on which heretofore I had bestowed little attention."

Speaking of Rousseau, he says: "I derived inexpressible satisfaction from his society. What I prized still more than his genius was his probity. He was one of the few literary characters, tried in the furnace of affliction, to whom you could, with perfect security, confide your most secret thoughts. . . . Even when he deviated, and became the victim of himself or of others, he could forget his own misery in devotion to the welfare of mankind. He was uniformly the advocate of the miserable. There might be inscribed on his tomb these affecting words from that Book of which he carried always about him some select passages, during the last years of his life: 'His sins, which are many, are forgiven, for he loved much.'"

         "I DO believe, and yet, in grief,
         I pray for help to unbelief;
         For needful strength aside to lay
         The daily cumberings of my way.

         "I 'm sick at heart of craft and cant,
         Sick of the crazed enthusiast's rant,
         Profession's smooth hypocrisies,
         And creeds of iron, and lives of ease.

         "I ponder o'er the sacred word,
         I read the record of our Lord;
         And, weak and troubled, envy them
         Who touched His seamless garment's hem;

         "Who saw the tears of love He wept
         Above the grave where Lazarus slept;
         And heard, amidst the shadows dim
         Of Olivet, His evening hymn.

         "How blessed the swineherd's low estate,
         The beggar crouching at the gate,
         The leper loathly and abhorred,
         Whose eyes of flesh beheld the Lord!

         "O sacred soil His sandals pressed!
         Sweet fountains of His noonday rest!
         O light and air of Palestine,
         Impregnate with His life divine!

         "Oh, bear me thither! Let me look
         On Siloa's pool, and Kedron's brook;
         Kneel at Gethsemane, and by
         Gennesaret walk, before I die!

         "Methinks this cold and northern night
         Would melt before that Orient light;
         And, wet by Hermon's dew and rain,
         My childhood's faith revive again!"

         So spake my friend, one autumn day,
         Where the still river slid away
         Beneath us, and above the brown
         Red curtains of the woods shut down.

         Then said I,—for I could not brook
         The mute appealing of his look,—
         "I, too, am weak, and faith is small,
         And blindness happeneth unto all.

         "Yet, sometimes glimpses on my sight,
         Through present wrong, the eternal right;
         And, step by step, since time began,
         I see the steady gain of man;

         "That all of good the past hath had
         Remains to make our own time glad,
         Our common daily life divine,
         And every land a Palestine.

         "Thou weariest of thy present state;
         What gain to thee time's holiest date?
         The doubter now perchance had been
         As High Priest or as Pilate then!

         "What thought Chorazin's scribes? What faith
         In Him had Nain and Nazareth?
         Of the few followers whom He led
         One sold Him,—all forsook and fled.

         "O friend! we need nor rock nor sand,
         Nor storied stream of Morning-Land;
         The heavens are glassed in Merrimac,—
         What more could Jordan render back?

         "We lack but open eye and ear
         To find the Orient's marvels here;
         The still small voice in autumn's hush,
         Yon maple wood the burning bush.

         "For still the new transcends the old,
         In signs and tokens manifold;
         Slaves rise up men; the olive waves,
         With roots deep set in battle graves!

         "Through the harsh noises of our day
         A low, sweet prelude finds its way;
         Through clouds of doubt, and creeds of fear,
         A light is breaking, calm and clear.

         "That song of Love, now low and far,
         Erelong shall swell from star to star!
         That light, the breaking day, which tips
         The golden-spired Apocalypse!"

         Then, when my good friend shook his head,
         And, sighing, sadly smiled, I said:
         "Thou mind'st me of a story told
         In rare Bernardin's leaves of gold."

         And while the slanted sunbeams wove
         The shadows of the frost-stained grove,
         And, picturing all, the river ran
         O'er cloud and wood, I thus began:—

          . . . . . . . . . . . . .

         In Mount Valerien's chestnut wood
         The Chapel of the Hermits stood;
         And thither, at the close of day,
         Came two old pilgrims, worn and gray.

         One, whose impetuous youth defied
         The storms of Baikal's wintry side,
         And mused and dreamed where tropic day
         Flamed o'er his lost Virginia's bay.

         His simple tale of love and woe
         All hearts had melted, high or low;—
         A blissful pain, a sweet distress,
         Immortal in its tenderness.

         Yet, while above his charmed page
         Beat quick the young heart of his age,
         He walked amidst the crowd unknown,
         A sorrowing old man, strange and lone.

         A homeless, troubled age,—the gray
         Pale setting of a weary day;
         Too dull his ear for voice of praise,
         Too sadly worn his brow for bays.

         Pride, lust of power and glory, slept;
         Yet still his heart its young dream kept,
         And, wandering like the deluge-dove,
         Still sought the resting-place of love.

         And, mateless, childless, envied more
         The peasant's welcome from his door
         By smiling eyes at eventide,
         Than kingly gifts or lettered pride.

         Until, in place of wife and child,
         All-pitying Nature on him smiled,
         And gave to him the golden keys
         To all her inmost sanctities.

         Mild Druid of her wood-paths dim!
         She laid her great heart bare to him,
         Its loves and sweet accords;—he saw
         The beauty of her perfect law.

         The language of her signs lie knew,
         What notes her cloudy clarion blew;
         The rhythm of autumn's forest dyes,
         The hymn of sunset's painted skies.

         And thus he seemed to hear the song
         Which swept, of old, the stars along;
         And to his eyes the earth once more
         Its fresh and primal beauty wore.

         Who sought with him, from summer air,
         And field and wood, a balm for care;
         And bathed in light of sunset skies
         His tortured nerves and weary eyes?

         His fame on all the winds had flown;
         His words had shaken crypt and throne;
         Like fire, on camp and court and cell
         They dropped, and kindled as they fell.

         Beneath the pomps of state, below
         The mitred juggler's masque and show,
         A prophecy, a vague hope, ran
         His burning thought from man to man.

         For peace or rest too well he saw
         The fraud of priests, the wrong of law,
         And felt how hard, between the two,
         Their breath of pain the millions drew.

         A prophet-utterance, strong and wild,
         The weakness of an unweaned child,
         A sun-bright hope for human-kind,
         And self-despair, in him combined.

         He loathed the false, yet lived not true
         To half the glorious truths he knew;
         The doubt, the discord, and the sin,
         He mourned without, he felt within.

         Untrod by him the path he showed,
         Sweet pictures on his easel glowed
         Of simple faith, and loves of home,
         And virtue's golden days to come.

         But weakness, shame, and folly made
         The foil to all his pen portrayed;
         Still, where his dreamy splendors shone,
         The shadow of himself was thrown.

         Lord, what is man, whose thought, at times,
         Up to Thy sevenfold brightness climbs,
         While still his grosser instinct clings
         To earth, like other creeping things!

         So rich in words, in acts so mean;
         So high, so low; chance-swung between
         The foulness of the penal pit
         And Truth's clear sky, millennium-lit!

         Vain, pride of star-lent genius!—vain,
         Quick fancy and creative brain,
         Unblest by prayerful sacrifice,
         Absurdly great, or weakly wise!

         Midst yearnings for a truer life,
         Without were fears, within was strife;
         And still his wayward act denied
         The perfect good for which he sighed.

         The love he sent forth void returned;
         The fame that crowned him scorched and burned,
         Burning, yet cold and drear and lone,—
         A fire-mount in a frozen zone!

         Like that the gray-haired sea-king passed,(9)
         Seen southward from his sleety mast,
         About whose brows of changeless frost
         A wreath of flame the wild winds tossed.

         Far round the mournful beauty played
         Of lambent light and purple shade,
         Lost on the fixed and dumb despair
         Of frozen earth and sea and air!

         A man apart, unknown, unloved
         By those whose wrongs his soul had moved,
         He bore the ban of Church and State,
         The good man's fear, the bigot's hate!

         Forth from the city's noise and throng,
         Its pomp and shame, its sin and wrong,
         The twain that summer day had strayed
         To Mount Valerien's chestnut shade.

         To them the green fields and the wood
         Lent something of their quietude,
         And golden-tinted sunset seemed
         Prophetical of all they dreamed.

         The hermits from their simple cares
         The bell was calling home to prayers,
         And, listening to its sound, the twain
         Seemed lapped in childhood's trust again.

         Wide open stood the chapel door;
         A sweet old music, swelling o'er
         Low prayerful murmurs, issued thence,—
         The Litanies of Providence!

         Then Rousseau spake: "Where two or three
         In His name meet, He there will be!"
         And then, in silence, on their knees
         They sank beneath the chestnut-trees.

         As to the blind returning light,
         As daybreak to the Arctic night,
         Old faith revived; the doubts of years
         Dissolved in reverential tears.

         That gush of feeling overpast,
         "Ah me!" Bernardin sighed at last,
         I would thy bitterest foes could see
         Thy heart as it is seen of me!

         "No church of God hast thou denied;
         Thou hast but spurned in scorn aside
         A bare and hollow counterfeit,
         Profaning the pure name of it!

         "With dry dead moss and marish weeds
         His fire the western herdsman feeds,
         And greener from the ashen plain
         The sweet spring grasses rise again.

         "Nor thunder-peal nor mighty wind
         Disturb the solid sky behind;
         And through the cloud the red bolt rends
         The calm, still smile of Heaven descends.

         "Thus through the world, like bolt and blast,
         And scourging fire, thy words have passed.
         Clouds break,—the steadfast heavens remain;
         Weeds burn,—the ashes feed the grain!

         "But whoso strives with wrong may find
         Its touch pollute, its darkness blind;
         And learn, as latent fraud is shown
         In others' faith, to doubt his own.

         "With dream and falsehood, simple trust
         And pious hope we tread in dust;
         Lost the calm faith in goodness,—lost
         The baptism of the Pentecost!

         "Alas!—the blows for error meant
         Too oft on truth itself are spent,
         As through the false and vile and base
         Looks forth her sad, rebuking face.

         "Not ours the Theban's charmed life;
         We come not scathless from the strife!
         The Python's coil about us clings,
         The trampled Hydra bites and stings!

         "Meanwhile, the sport of seeming chance,
         The plastic shapes of circumstance,
         What might have been we fondly guess,
         If earlier born, or tempted less.

         "And thou, in these wild, troubled days,
         Misjudged alike in blame and praise,
         Unsought and undeserved the same
         The skeptic's praise, the bigot's blame;—

         "I cannot doubt, if thou hadst been
         Among the highly favored men
         Who walked on earth with Fenelon,
         He would have owned thee as his son;

         "And, bright with wings of cherubim
         Visibly waving over him,
         Seen through his life, the Church had seemed
         All that its old confessors dreamed."

         "I would have been," Jean Jaques replied,
         "The humblest servant at his side,
         Obscure, unknown, content to see
         How beautiful man's life may be!

         "Oh, more than thrice-blest relic, more
         Than solemn rite or sacred lore,
         The holy life of one who trod
         The foot-marks of the Christ of God!

         "Amidst a blinded world he saw
         The oneness of the Dual law;
         That Heaven's sweet peace on Earth began,
         And God was loved through love of man.

         "He lived the Truth which reconciled
         The strong man Reason, Faith the child;
         In him belief and act were one,
         The homilies of duty done!"

         So speaking, through the twilight gray
         The two old pilgrims went their way.
         What seeds of life that day were sown,
         The heavenly watchers knew alone.

         Time passed, and Autumn came to fold
         Green Summer in her brown and gold;
         Time passed, and Winter's tears of snow
         Dropped on the grave-mound of Rousseau.

         "The tree remaineth where it fell,
         The pained on earth is pained in hell!"
         So priestcraft from its altars cursed
         The mournful doubts its falsehood nursed.

         Ah! well of old the Psalmist prayed,
         "Thy hand, not man's, on me be laid!"
         Earth frowns below, Heaven weeps above,
         And man is hate, but God is love!

         No Hermits now the wanderer sees,
         Nor chapel with its chestnut-trees;
         A morning dream, a tale that's told,
         The wave of change o'er all has rolled.

         Yet lives the lesson of that day;
         And from its twilight cool and gray
         Comes up a low, sad whisper, "Make
         The truth thine own, for truth's own sake.

         "Why wait to see in thy brief span
         Its perfect flower and fruit in man?
         No saintly touch can save; no balm
         Of healing hath the martyr's palm.

         "Midst soulless forms, and false pretence
         Of spiritual pride and pampered sense,
         A voice saith, 'What is that to thee?
         Be true thyself, and follow Me!

         "In days when throne and altar heard
         The wanton's wish, the bigot's word,
         And pomp of state and ritual show
         Scarce hid the loathsome death below,—

         "Midst fawning priests and courtiers foul,
         The losel swarm of crown and cowl,
         White-robed walked Francois Fenelon,
         Stainless as Uriel in the sun!

         "Yet in his time the stake blazed red,
         The poor were eaten up like bread
         Men knew him not; his garment's hem
         No healing virtue had for them.

         "Alas! no present saint we find;
         The white cymar gleams far behind,
         Revealed in outline vague, sublime,
         Through telescopic mists of time!

         "Trust not in man with passing breath,
         But in the Lord, old Scripture saith;
         The truth which saves thou mayst not blend
         With false professor, faithless friend.

         "Search thine own heart. What paineth thee
         In others in thyself may be;
         All dust is frail, all flesh is weak;
         Be thou the true man thou dost seek!

         "Where now with pain thou treadest, trod
         The whitest of the saints of God!
         To show thee where their feet were set,
         the light which led them shineth yet.

         "The footprints of the life divine,
         Which marked their path, remain in thine;
         And that great Life, transfused in theirs,
         Awaits thy faith, thy love, thy prayers!"

         A lesson which I well may heed,
         A word of fitness to my need;
         So from that twilight cool and gray
         Still saith a voice, or seems to say.

         We rose, and slowly homeward turned,
         While down the west the sunset burned;
         And, in its light, hill, wood, and tide,
         And human forms seemed glorified.

         The village homes transfigured stood,
         And purple bluffs, whose belting wood
         Across the waters leaned to hold
         The yellow leaves like lamps of hold.

         Then spake my friend: "Thy words are true;
         Forever old, forever new,
         These home-seen splendors are the same
         Which over Eden's sunsets came.

         "To these bowed heavens let wood and hill
         Lift voiceless praise and anthem still;
         Fall, warm with blessing, over them,
         Light of the New Jerusalem!

         "Flow on, sweet river, like the stream
         Of John's Apocalyptic dream
         This mapled ridge shall Horeb be,
         Yon green-banked lake our Galilee!

         "Henceforth my heart shall sigh no more
         For olden time and holier shore;
         God's love and blessing, then and there,
         Are now and here and everywhere."

         1851.

## TAULER.

         TAULER, the preacher, walked, one autumn day,
         Without the walls of Strasburg, by the Rhine,
         Pondering the solemn Miracle of Life;
         As one who, wandering in a starless night,
         Feels momently the jar of unseen waves,
         And hears the thunder of an unknown sea,
         Breaking along an unimagined shore.

         And as he walked he prayed. Even the same
         Old prayer with which, for half a score of years,
         Morning, and noon, and evening, lip and heart
         Had groaned: "Have pity upon me, Lord!
         Thou seest, while teaching others, I am blind.
         Send me a man who can direct my steps!"

         Then, as he mused, he heard along his path
         A sound as of an old man's staff among
         The dry, dead linden-leaves; and, looking up,
         He saw a stranger, weak, and poor, and old.

         "Peace be unto thee, father!" Tauler said,
         "God give thee a good day!" The old man raised
         Slowly his calm blue eyes. "I thank thee, son;
         But all my days are good, and none are ill."

         Wondering thereat, the preacher spake again,
         "God give thee happy life." The old man smiled,
         "I never am unhappy."

                                   Tauler laid
         His hand upon the stranger's coarse gray sleeve
         "Tell me, O father, what thy strange words mean.
         Surely man's days are evil, and his life
         Sad as the grave it leads to."  "Nay, my son,
         Our times are in God's hands, and all our days
         Are as our needs; for shadow as for sun,
         For cold as heat, for want as wealth, alike
         Our thanks are due, since that is best which is;
         And that which is not, sharing not His life,
         Is evil only as devoid of good.
         And for the happiness of which I spake,
         I find it in submission to his will,
         And calm trust in the holy Trinity
         Of Knowledge, Goodness, and Almighty Power."

         Silently wondering, for a little space,
         Stood the great preacher; then he spake as one
         Who, suddenly grappling with a haunting thought
         Which long has followed, whispering through the dark
         Strange terrors, drags it, shrieking, into light
         "What if God's will consign thee hence to Hell?"

         "Then," said the stranger, cheerily, "be it so.
         What Hell may be I know not; this I know,—
         I cannot lose the presence of the Lord.
         One arm, Humility, takes hold upon
         His dear Humanity; the other, Love,
         Clasps his Divinity. So where I go
         He goes; and better fire-walled Hell with Him
         Than golden-gated Paradise without."

         Tears sprang in Tauler's eyes. A sudden light,
         Like the first ray which fell on chaos, clove
         Apart the shadow wherein he had walked
         Darkly at noon. And, as the strange old man
         Went his slow way, until his silver hair
         Set like the white moon where the hills of vine
         Slope to the Rhine, he bowed his head and said
         "My prayer is answered. God hath sent the man
         Long sought, to teach me, by his simple trust,
         Wisdom the weary schoolmen never knew."

         So, entering with a changed and cheerful step
         The city gates, he saw, far down the street,
         A mighty shadow break the light of noon,
         Which tracing backward till its airy lines
         Hardened to stony plinths, he raised his eyes
         O'er broad facade and lofty pediment,
         O'er architrave and frieze and sainted niche,
         Up the stone lace-work chiselled by the wise
         Erwin of Steinbach, dizzily up to where
         In the noon-brightness the great Minster's tower,
         Jewelled with sunbeams on its mural crown,
         Rose like a visible prayer. "Behold!" he said,
         "The stranger's faith made plain before mine eyes.
         As yonder tower outstretches to the earth
         The dark triangle of its shade alone
         When the clear day is shining on its top,
         So, darkness in the pathway of Man's life
         Is but the shadow of God's providence,
         By the great Sun of Wisdom cast thereon;
         And what is dark below is light in Heaven."

         1853.

## THE HERMIT OF THE THEBAID.

         O STRONG, upwelling prayers of faith,
         From inmost founts of life ye start,—
         The spirit's pulse, the vital breath
         Of soul and heart!

         From pastoral toil, from traffic's din,
         Alone, in crowds, at home, abroad,
         Unheard of man, ye enter in
         The ear of God.

         Ye brook no forced and measured tasks,
         Nor weary rote, nor formal chains;
         The simple heart, that freely asks
         In love, obtains.

         For man the living temple is
         The mercy-seat and cherubim,
         And all the holy mysteries,
         He bears with him.

         And most avails the prayer of love,
         Which, wordless, shapes itself in needs,
         And wearies Heaven for naught above
         Our common needs.

         Which brings to God's all-perfect will
         That trust of His undoubting child
         Whereby all seeming good and ill
         Are reconciled.

         And, seeking not for special signs
         Of favor, is content to fall
         Within the providence which shines
         And rains on all.

         Alone, the Thebaid hermit leaned
         At noontime o'er the sacred word.
         Was it an angel or a fiend
         Whose voice be heard?

         It broke the desert's hush of awe,
         A human utterance, sweet and mild;
         And, looking up, the hermit saw
         A little child.

         A child, with wonder-widened eyes,
         O'erawed and troubled by the sight
         Of hot, red sands, and brazen skies,
         And anchorite.

         "'What dost thou here, poor man? No shade
         Of cool, green palms, nor grass, nor well,
         Nor corn, nor vines." The hermit said
         "With God I dwell.

         "Alone with Him in this great calm,
         I live not by the outward sense;
         My Nile his love, my sheltering palm
         His providence."

         The child gazed round him. "Does God live
         Here only?—where the desert's rim
         Is green with corn, at morn and eve,
         We pray to Him.

         "My brother tills beside the Nile
         His little field; beneath the leaves
         My sisters sit and spin, the while
         My mother weaves.

         "And when the millet's ripe heads fall,
         And all the bean-field hangs in pod,
         My mother smiles, and, says that all
         Are gifts from God."

         Adown the hermit's wasted cheeks
         Glistened the flow of human tears;
         "Dear Lord!" he said, "Thy angel speaks,
         Thy servant hears."

         Within his arms the child he took,
         And thought of home and life with men;
         And all his pilgrim feet forsook
         Returned again.

         The palmy shadows cool and long,
         The eyes that smiled through lavish locks,
         Home's cradle-hymn and harvest-song,
         And bleat of flocks.

         "O child!" he said, "thou teachest me
         There is no place where God is not;
         That love will make, where'er it be,
         A holy spot."

         He rose from off the desert sand,
         And, leaning on his staff of thorn,
         Went with the young child hand in hand,
         Like night with morn.

         They crossed the desert's burning line,
         And heard the palm-tree's rustling fan,
         The Nile-bird's cry, the low of kine,
         And voice of man.

         Unquestioning, his childish guide
         He followed, as the small hand led
         To where a woman, gentle-eyed,
         Her distaff fed.

         She rose, she clasped her truant boy,
         She thanked the stranger with her eyes;
         The hermit gazed in doubt and joy
         And dumb surprise.

         And to!—with sudden warmth and light
         A tender memory thrilled his frame;
         New-born, the world-lost anchorite
         A man became.

         "O sister of El Zara's race,
         Behold me!—had we not one mother?"
         She gazed into the stranger's face
         "Thou art my brother!"

         "And when to share our evening meal,
         She calls the stranger at the door,
         She says God fills the hands that deal
         Food to the poor."

         "O kin of blood! Thy life of use
         And patient trust is more than mine;
         And wiser than the gray recluse
         This child of thine.

         "For, taught of him whom God hath sent,
         That toil is praise, and love is prayer,
         I come, life's cares and pains content
         With thee to share."

         Even as his foot the threshold crossed,
         The hermit's better life began;
         Its holiest saint the Thebaid lost,
         And found a man!

         1854.

## MAUD MULLER.

The recollection of some descendants of a Hessian deserter in the Revolutionary war bearing the name of Muller doubtless suggested the somewhat infelicitous title of a New England idyl. The poem had no real foundation in fact, though a hint of it may have been found in recalling an incident, trivial in itself, of a journey on the picturesque Maine seaboard with my sister some years before it was written. We had stopped to rest our tired horse under the shade of an apple-tree, and refresh him with water from a little brook which rippled through the stone wall across the road. A very beautiful young girl in scantest summer attire was at work in the hay-field, and as we talked with her we noticed that she strove to hide her bare feet by raking hay over them, blushing as she did so, through the tan of her cheek and neck.

         MAUD MULLER on a summer's day,
         Raked the meadow sweet with hay.

         Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
         Of simple beauty and rustic-health.

         Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee
         The mock-bird echoed from his tree.

         But when she glanced to the far-off town,
         White from its hill-slope looking down,

         The sweet song died, and a vague unrest
         And a nameless longing filled her breast,—

         A wish, that she hardly dared to own,
         For something better than she had known.

         The Judge rode slowly down the lane,
         Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.

         He drew his bridle in the shade
         Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid,

         And asked a draught from the spring that flowed
         Through the meadow across the road.

         She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up,
         And filled for him her small tin cup,

         And blushed as she gave it, looking down
         On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.

         "Thanks!" said the Judge; "a sweeter draught
         From a fairer hand was never quaffed."

         He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees,
         Of the singing birds and the humming bees;

         Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether
         The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.

         And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown,
         And her graceful ankles bare and brown;

         And listened, while a pleased surprise
         Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.

         At last, like one who for delay
         Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away.

         Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah me!
         That I the Judge's bride might be!

         "He would dress me up in silks so fine,
         And praise and toast me at his wine.

         "My father should wear a broadcloth coat;
         My brother should sail a painted boat.

         "I'd dress my mother so grand and gay,
         And the baby should have a new toy each day.

         "And I 'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor,
         And all should bless me who left our door."

         The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill,
         And saw Maud Muller standing still.

         A form more fair, a face more sweet,
         Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.

         "And her modest answer and graceful air
         Show her wise and good as she is fair.

         "Would she were mine, and I to-day,
         Like her, a harvester of hay;

         "No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs,
         Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,

         "But low of cattle and song of birds,
         And health and quiet and loving words."

         But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold,
         And his mother, vain of her rank and gold.

         So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
         And Maud was left in the field alone.

         But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
         When he hummed in court an old love-tune;

         And the young girl mused beside the well
         Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.

         He wedded a wife of richest dower,
         Who lived for fashion, as he for power.

         Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
         He watched a picture come and go;

         And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
         Looked out in their innocent surprise.

         Oft, when the wine in his glass was red,
         He longed for the wayside well instead;

         And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms
         To dream of meadows and clover-blooms.

         And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain,
         "Ah, that I were free again!

         "Free as when I rode that day,
         Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay."

         She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
         And many children played round her door.

         But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain,
         Left their traces on heart and brain.

         And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
         On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,

         And she heard the little spring brook fall
         Over the roadside, through the wall,

         In the shade of the apple-tree again
         She saw a rider draw his rein.

         And, gazing down with timid grace,
         She felt his pleased eyes read her face.

         Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
         Stretched away into stately halls;

         The weary wheel to a spinnet turned,
         The tallow candle an astral burned,

         And for him who sat by the chimney lug,
         Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,

         A manly form at her side she saw,
         And joy was duty and love was law.

         Then she took up her burden of life again,
         Saying only, "It might have been."

         Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
         For rich repiner and household drudge!

         God pity them both! and pity us all,
         Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.

         For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
         The saddest are these: "It might have been!"

         Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
         Deeply buried from human eyes;

         And, in the hereafter, angels may
         Roll the stone from its grave away!

         1854.

## MARY GARVIN.

         FROM the heart of Waumbek Methna, from the
         lake that never fails,
         Falls the Saco in the green lap of Conway's
         intervales;
         There, in wild and virgin freshness, its waters
         foam and flow,
         As when Darby Field first saw them, two hundred
         years ago.

         But, vexed in all its seaward course with bridges,
         dams, and mills,
         How changed is Saco's stream, how lost its freedom
         of the hills,
         Since travelled Jocelyn, factor Vines, and stately
         Champernoon
         Heard on its banks the gray wolf's howl, the trumpet
         of the loon!

         With smoking axle hot with speed, with steeds of
         fire and steam,
         Wide-waked To-day leaves Yesterday behind him
         like a dream.
         Still, from the hurrying train of Life, fly backward
         far and fast
         The milestones of the fathers, the landmarks of
         the past.

         But human hearts remain unchanged: the sorrow
         and the sin,
         The loves and hopes and fears of old, are to our
         own akin;

         And if, in tales our fathers told, the songs our
         mothers sung,
         Tradition wears a snowy beard, Romance is always
         young.

         O sharp-lined man of traffic, on Saco's banks today!
         O mill-girl watching late and long the shuttle's
         restless play!
         Let, for the once, a listening ear the working hand
         beguile,
         And lend my old Provincial tale, as suits, a tear or
         smile!

                  . . . . . . . . . . . . .

         The evening gun had sounded from gray Fort
         Mary's walls;
         Through the forest, like a wild beast, roared and
         plunged the Saco's' falls.

         And westward on the sea-wind, that damp and
         gusty grew,
         Over cedars darkening inland the smokes of Spurwink
         blew.

         On the hearth of Farmer Garvin, blazed the crackling
         walnut log;
         Right and left sat dame and goodman, and between
         them lay the dog,

         Head on paws, and tail slow wagging, and beside
         him on her mat,
         Sitting drowsy in the firelight, winked and purred
         the mottled cat.

         "Twenty years!" said Goodman Garvin, speaking
         sadly, under breath,
         And his gray head slowly shaking, as one who
         speaks of death.

         The goodwife dropped her needles: "It is twenty
         years to-day,
         Since the Indians fell on Saco, and stole our child
         away."

         Then they sank into the silence, for each knew
         the other's thought,
         Of a great and common sorrow, and words were,
         needed not.

         "Who knocks?" cried Goodman Garvin. The
         door was open thrown;
         On two strangers, man and maiden, cloaked and
         furred, the fire-light shone.

         One with courteous gesture lifted the bear-skin
         from his head;
         "Lives here Elkanah Garvin?"  "I am he," the
         goodman said.

         "Sit ye down, and dry and warm ye, for the night
         is chill with rain."
         And the goodwife drew the settle, and stirred the
         fire amain.

         The maid unclasped her cloak-hood, the firelight
         glistened fair
         In her large, moist eyes, and over soft folds of
         dark brown hair.

         Dame Garvin looked upon her: "It is Mary's self
         I see!"
         "Dear heart!" she cried, "now tell me, has my
         child come back to me?"

         "My name indeed is Mary," said the stranger sobbing
         wild;
         "Will you be to me a mother? I am Mary Garvin's child!"

         "She sleeps by wooded Simcoe, but on her dying
         day
         She bade my father take me to her kinsfolk far
         away.

         "And when the priest besought her to do me no
         such wrong,
         She said, 'May God forgive me! I have closed
         my heart too long.'

         "'When I hid me from my father, and shut out
         my mother's call,
         I sinned against those dear ones, and the Father
         of us all.

         "'Christ's love rebukes no home-love, breaks no
         tie of kin apart;
         Better heresy in doctrine, than heresy of heart.

         "'Tell me not the Church must censure: she who
         wept the Cross beside
         Never made her own flesh strangers, nor the claims
         of blood denied;

         "'And if she who wronged her parents, with her
         child atones to them,
         Earthly daughter, Heavenly Mother! thou at least
         wilt not condemn!'

         "So, upon her death-bed lying, my blessed mother
         spake;
         As we come to do her bidding, So receive us for her
         sake."

         "God be praised!" said Goodwife Garvin, "He taketh,
         and He gives;
         He woundeth, but He healeth; in her child our
         daughter lives!"

         "Amen!" the old man answered, as he brushed a
         tear away,
         And, kneeling by his hearthstone, said, with reverence,
         "Let us pray."

         All its Oriental symbols, and its Hebrew pararphrase,
         Warm with earnest life and feeling, rose his prayer
         of love and praise.

         But he started at beholding, as he rose from off
         his knee,
         The stranger cross his forehead with the sign of
         Papistrie.

         "What is this?" cried Farmer Garvin. "Is an English
         Christian's home
         A chapel or a mass-house, that you make the sign
         of Rome?"

         Then the young girl knelt beside him, kissed his
         trembling hand, and cried:
         Oh, forbear to chide my father; in that faith my
         mother died!

         "On her wooden cross at Simcoe the dews and
         sunshine fall,
         As they fall on Spurwink's graveyard; and the
         dear God watches all!"

         The old man stroked the fair head that rested on
         his knee;
         "Your words, dear child," he answered, "are God's
         rebuke to me.

         "Creed and rite perchance may differ, yet our
         faith and hope be one.
         Let me be your father's father, let him be to me
         a son."

         When the horn, on Sabbath morning, through the
         still and frosty air,
         From Spurwink, Pool, and Black Point, called to
         sermon and to prayer,

         To the goodly house of worship, where, in order
         due and fit,
         As by public vote directed, classed and ranked the
         people sit;

         Mistress first and goodwife after, clerkly squire
         before the clown,
         "From the brave coat, lace-embroidered, to the gray
         frock, shading down;"

         From the pulpit read the preacher, "Goodman
         Garvin and his wife
         Fain would thank the Lord, whose kindness has
         followed them through life,

         "For the great and crowning mercy, that their
         daughter, from the wild,
         Where she rests (they hope in God's peace), has
         sent to them her child;

         "And the prayers of all God's people they ask,
         that they may prove
         Not unworthy, through their weakness, of such
         special proof of love."

         As the preacher prayed, uprising, the aged couple
         stood,
         And the fair Canadian also, in her modest maiden-
         hood.

         Thought the elders, grave and doubting, "She is
         Papist born and bred;"
         Thought the young men, "'T is an angel in Mary
         Garvin's stead!"

## THE RANGER.

Originally published as Martha Mason; a Song of the Old French War.

         ROBERT RAWLIN!—Frosts were falling
         When the ranger's horn was calling
         Through the woods to Canada.

         Gone the winter's sleet and snowing,
         Gone the spring-time's bud and blowing,
         Gone the summer's harvest mowing,
         And again the fields are gray.
         Yet away, he's away!
         Faint and fainter hope is growing
         In the hearts that mourn his stay.

         Where the lion, crouching high on
         Abraham's rock with teeth of iron,
         Glares o'er wood and wave away,
         Faintly thence, as pines far sighing,
         Or as thunder spent and dying,
         Come the challenge and replying,
         Come the sounds of flight and fray.
         Well-a-day! Hope and pray!
         Some are living, some are lying
         In their red graves far away.

         Straggling rangers, worn with dangers,
         Homeward faring, weary strangers
         Pass the farm-gate on their way;
         Tidings of the dead and living,
         Forest march and ambush, giving,
         Till the maidens leave their weaving,
         And the lads forget their play.
         "Still away, still away!"
         Sighs a sad one, sick with grieving,
         "Why does Robert still delay!"

         Nowhere fairer, sweeter, rarer,
         Does the golden-locked fruit bearer
         Through his painted woodlands stray,
         Than where hillside oaks and beeches
         Overlook the long, blue reaches,
         Silver coves and pebbled beaches,
         And green isles of Casco Bay;
         Nowhere day, for delay,
         With a tenderer look beseeches,
         "Let me with my charmed earth stay."

         On the grain-lands of the mainlands
         Stands the serried corn like train-bands,
         Plume and pennon rustling gay;
         Out at sea, the islands wooded,
         Silver birches, golden-hooded,
         Set with maples, crimson-blooded,
         White sea-foam and sand-hills gray,
         Stretch away, far away.
         Dim and dreamy, over-brooded
         By the hazy autumn day.

         Gayly chattering to the clattering
         Of the brown nuts downward pattering,
         Leap the squirrels, red and gray.
         On the grass-land, on the fallow,
         Drop the apples, red and yellow;
         Drop the russet pears and mellow,
         Drop the red leaves all the day.
         And away, swift away,
         Sun and cloud, o'er hill and hollow
         Chasing, weave their web of play.

         "Martha Mason, Martha Mason,
         Prithee tell us of the reason
         Why you mope at home to-day
         Surely smiling is not sinning;
         Leave, your quilling, leave your spinning;
         What is all your store of linen,
         If your heart is never gay?
         Come away, come away!
         Never yet did sad beginning
         Make the task of life a play."

         Overbending, till she's blending
         With the flaxen skein she's tending
         Pale brown tresses smoothed away
         From her face of patient sorrow,
         Sits she, seeking but to borrow,
         From the trembling hope of morrow,
         Solace for the weary day.
         "Go your way, laugh and play;
         Unto Him who heeds the sparrow
         And the lily, let me pray."

         "With our rally, rings the valley,—
         Join us!" cried the blue-eyed Nelly;
         "Join us!" cried the laughing May,
         "To the beach we all are going,
         And, to save the task of rowing,
         West by north the wind is blowing,
         Blowing briskly down the bay
         Come away, come away!
         Time and tide are swiftly flowing,
         Let us take them while we may!

         "Never tell us that you'll fail us,
         Where the purple beach-plum mellows
         On the bluffs so wild and gray.
         Hasten, for the oars are falling;
         Hark, our merry mates are calling;
         Time it is that we were all in,
         Singing tideward down the bay!"
         "Nay, nay, let me stay;
         Sore and sad for Robert Rawlin
         Is my heart," she said, "to-day."

         "Vain your calling for Rob Rawlin
         Some red squaw his moose-meat's broiling,
         Or some French lass, singing gay;
         Just forget as he's forgetting;
         What avails a life of fretting?
         If some stars must needs be setting,
         Others rise as good as they."
         "Cease, I pray; go your way!"
         Martha cries, her eyelids wetting;
         "Foul and false the words you say!"

         "Martha Mason, hear to reason!—
         Prithee, put a kinder face on!"
         "Cease to vex me," did she say;
         "Better at his side be lying,
         With the mournful pine-trees sighing,
         And the wild birds o'er us crying,
         Than to doubt like mine a prey;
         While away, far away,
         Turns my heart, forever trying
         Some new hope for each new day.

         "When the shadows veil the meadows,
         And the sunset's golden ladders
         Sink from twilight's walls of gray,—
         From the window of my dreaming,
         I can see his sickle gleaming,
         Cheery-voiced, can hear him teaming
         Down the locust-shaded way;
         But away, swift away,
         Fades the fond, delusive seeming,
         And I kneel again to pray.

         "When the growing dawn is showing,
         And the barn-yard cock is crowing,
         And the horned moon pales away
         From a dream of him awaking,
         Every sound my heart is making
         Seems a footstep of his taking;
         Then I hush the thought, and say,
         'Nay, nay, he's away!'
         Ah! my heart, my heart is breaking
         For the dear one far away."

         Look up, Martha! worn and swarthy,
         Glows a face of manhood worthy
         "Robert!"  "Martha!" all they say.
         O'er went wheel and reel together,
         Little cared the owner whither;
         Heart of lead is heart of feather,
         Noon of night is noon of day!
         Come away, come away!
         When such lovers meet each other,
         Why should prying idlers stay?

         Quench the timber's fallen embers,
         Quench the recd leaves in December's
         Hoary rime and chilly spray.

         But the hearth shall kindle clearer,
         Household welcomes sound sincerer,
         Heart to loving heart draw nearer,
         When the bridal bells shall say:
         "Hope and pray, trust alway;
         Life is sweeter, love is dearer,
         For the trial and delay!"

         1856.

## THE GARRISON OF CAPE ANN.

         FROM the hills of home forth looking, far beneath
         the tent-like span
         Of the sky, I see the white gleam of the headland
         of Cape Ann.
         Well I know its coves and beaches to the ebb-tide
         glimmering down,
         And the white-walled hamlet children of its ancient
         fishing town.

         Long has passed the summer morning, and its
         memory waxes old,
         When along yon breezy headlands with a pleasant
         friend I strolled.
         Ah! the autumn sun is shining, and the ocean
         wind blows cool,
         And the golden-rod and aster bloom around thy
         grave, Rantoul!

         With the memory of that morning by the summer
         sea I blend
         A wild and wondrous story, by the younger Mather
         penned,
         In that quaint Magnalia Christi, with all strange
         and marvellous things,
         Heaped up huge and undigested, like the chaos
         Ovid sings.

         Dear to me these far, faint glimpses of the dual
         life of old,
         Inward, grand with awe and reverence; outward,
         mean and coarse and cold;
         Gleams of mystic beauty playing over dull and
         vulgar clay,
         Golden-threaded fancies weaving in a web of
         hodden gray.

         The great eventful Present hides the Past; but
         through the din
         Of its loud life hints and echoes from the life
         behind steal in;
         And the lore of homeland fireside, and the legendary
         rhyme,
         Make the task of duty lighter which the true man
         owes his time.

         So, with something of the feeling which the Covenanter
         knew,
         When with pious chisel wandering Scotland's
         moorland graveyards through,
         From the graves of old traditions I part the black-
         berry-vines,
         Wipe the moss from off the headstones, and retouch
         the faded lines.

         Where the sea-waves back and forward, hoarse
         with rolling pebbles, ran,
         The garrison-house stood watching on the gray
         rocks of Cape Ann;
         On its windy site uplifting gabled roof and palisade,
         And rough walls of unhewn timber with the moonlight
         overlaid.

         On his slow round walked the sentry, south and
         eastward looking forth
         O'er a rude and broken coast-line, white with
         breakers stretching north,—
         Wood and rock and gleaming sand-drift, jagged
         capes, with bush and tree,
         Leaning inland from the smiting of the wild and
         gusty sea.

         Before the deep-mouthed chimney, dimly lit by
         dying brands,
         Twenty soldiers sat and waited, with their muskets
         in their hands;
         On the rough-hewn oaken table the venison haunch
         was shared,
         And the pewter tankard circled slowly round from
         beard to beard.

         Long they sat and talked together,—talked of
         wizards Satan-sold;
         Of all ghostly sights and noises,—signs and wonders
         manifold;
         Of the spectre-ship of Salem, with the dead men
         in her shrouds,
         Sailing sheer above the water, in the loom of morning
         clouds;

         Of the marvellous valley hidden in the depths of
         Gloucester woods,
         Full of plants that love the summer,—blooms of
         warmer latitudes;
         Where the Arctic birch is braided by the tropic's
         flowery vines,
         And the white magnolia-blossoms star the twilight
         of the pines!

         But their voices sank yet lower, sank to husky
         tones of fear,
         As they spake of present tokens of the powers of
         evil near;
         Of a spectral host, defying stroke of steel and aim
         of gun;
         Never yet was ball to slay them in the mould of
         mortals run.

         Thrice, with plumes and flowing scalp-locks, from
         the midnight wood they came,—
         Thrice around the block-house marching, met, unharmed,
         its volleyed flame;
         Then, with mocking laugh and gesture, sunk in
         earth or lost in air,
         All the ghostly wonder vanished, and the moonlit
         sands lay bare.

         Midnight came; from out the forest moved a
         dusky mass that soon
         Grew to warriors, plumed and painted, grimly
         marching in the moon.
         "Ghosts or witches," said the captain, "thus I foil
         the Evil One!"
         And he rammed a silver button, from his doublet,
         down his gun.

         Once again the spectral horror moved the guarded
         wall about;
         Once again the levelled muskets through the palisades
         flashed out,
         With that deadly aim the squirrel on his tree-top
         might not shun,
         Nor the beach-bird seaward flying with his slant
         wing to the sun.

         Like the idle rain of summer sped the harmless
         shower of lead.
         With a laugh of fierce derision, once again the
         phantoms fled;
         Once again, without a shadow on the sands the
         moonlight lay,
         And the white smoke curling through it drifted
         slowly down the bay!

         "God preserve us!" said the captain; "never
         mortal foes were there;
         They have vanished with their leader, Prince and
         Power of the air!
         Lay aside your useless weapons; skill and prowess
         naught avail;
         They who do the Devil's service wear their master's
         coat of mail!"

         So the night grew near to cock-crow, when again
         a warning call
         Roused the score of weary soldiers watching round
         the dusky hall
         And they looked to flint and priming, and they
         longed for break of day;
         But the captain closed his Bible: "Let us cease
         from man, and pray!"

         To the men who went before us, all the unseen
         powers seemed near,
         And their steadfast strength of courage struck its
         roots in holy fear.
         Every hand forsook the musket, every head was
         bowed and bare,
         Every stout knee pressed the flag-stones, as the
         captain led in prayer.

         Ceased thereat the mystic marching of the spectres
         round the wall,
         But a sound abhorred, unearthly, smote the ears
         and hearts of all,—
         Howls of rage and shrieks of anguish! Never
         after mortal man
         Saw the ghostly leaguers marching round the
         block-house of Cape Ann.

         So to us who walk in summer through the cool and
         sea-blown town,
         From the childhood of its people comes the solemn
         legend down.
         Not in vain the ancient fiction, in whose moral
         lives the youth
         And the fitness and the freshness of an undecaying
         truth.

         Soon or late to all our dwellings come the spectres
         of the mind,
         Doubts and fears and dread forebodings, in the
         darkness undefined;
         Round us throng the grim projections of the heart
         and of the brain,
         And our pride of strength is weakness, and the
         cunning hand is vain.

         In the dark we cry like children; and no answer
         from on high
         Breaks the crystal spheres of silence, and no white
         wings downward fly;
         But the heavenly help we pray for comes to faith,
         and not to sight,
         And our prayers themselves drive backward all the
         spirits of the night!

         1857.

## THE GIFT OF TRITEMIUS.

         TRITEMIUS of Herbipolis, one day,
         While kneeling at the altar's foot to pray,
         Alone with God, as was his pious choice,
         Heard from without a miserable voice,
         A sound which seemed of all sad things to tell,
         As of a lost soul crying out of hell.

         Thereat the Abbot paused; the chain whereby
         His thoughts went upward broken by that cry;
         And, looking from the casement, saw below
         A wretched woman, with gray hair a-flow,
         And withered hands held up to him, who cried
         For alms as one who might not be denied.

         She cried, "For the dear love of Him who gave
         His life for ours, my child from bondage save,—
         My beautiful, brave first-born, chained with slaves
         In the Moor's galley, where the sun-smit waves
         Lap the white walls of Tunis!"—"What I can
         I give," Tritemius said, "my prayers."—"O man
         Of God!" she cried, for grief had made her bold,
         "Mock me not thus; I ask not prayers, but gold.
         Words will not serve me, alms alone suffice;
         Even while I speak perchance my first-born dies."

         "Woman!" Tritemius answered, "from our door
         None go unfed, hence are we always poor;
         A single soldo is our only store.
         Thou hast our prayers;—what can we give thee
         more?"

         "Give me," she said, "the silver candlesticks
         On either side of the great crucifix.
         God well may spare them on His errands sped,
         Or He can give you golden ones instead."

         Then spake Tritemius, "Even as thy word,
         Woman, so be it! Our most gracious Lord,
         Who loveth mercy more than sacrifice,
         Pardon me if a human soul I prize
         Above the gifts upon his altar piled!
         Take what thou askest, and redeem thy child."

         But his hand trembled as the holy alms
         He placed within the beggar's eager palms;
         And as she vanished down the linden shade,
         He bowed his head and for forgiveness prayed.
         So the day passed, and when the twilight came
         He woke to find the chapel all aflame,
         And, dumb with grateful wonder, to behold
         Upon the altar candlesticks of gold!

         1857.

## SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE.

In the valuable and carefully prepared History of Marblehead, published in 1879 by Samuel Roads, Jr., it is stated that the crew of Captain Ireson, rather than himself, were responsible for the abandonment of the disabled vessel. To screen themselves they charged their captain with the crime. In view of this the writer of the ballad addressed the following letter to the historian:—

OAK KNOLL, DANVERS, 5 mo. 18, 1880. MY DEAR FRIEND: I heartily thank thee for a copy of thy History of Marblehead. I have read it with great interest and think good use has been made of the abundant material. No town in Essex County has a record more honorable than Marblehead; no one has done more to develop the industrial interests of our New England seaboard, and certainly none have given such evidence of self-sacrificing patriotism. I am glad the story of it has been at last told, and told so well. I have now no doubt that thy version of Skipper Ireson's ride is the correct one. My verse was founded solely on a fragment of rhyme which I heard from one of my early schoolmates, a native of Marblehead. I supposed the story to which it referred dated back at least a century. I knew nothing of the participators, and the narrative of the ballad was pure fancy. I am glad for the sake of truth and justice that the real facts are given in thy book. I certainly would not knowingly do injustice to any one, dead or living.

I am very truly thy friend, JOHN G. WHITTIER.

         OF all the rides since, the birth of time,
         Told in story or sung in rhyme,—
         On Apuleius's Golden Ass,
         Or one-eyed Calendar's horse of brass;
         Witch astride of a human back,
         Islam's prophet on Al-Borak,—
         The strangest ride that ever was sped
         Was Ireson's, out from Marblehead!
         Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
         Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
         By the women of Marblehead!
         Body of turkey, head of owl,
         Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl,
         Feathered and ruffled in every part,
         Skipper Ireson stood in the cart.
         Scores of women, old and young,
         Strong of muscle, and glib of tongue,
         Pushed and pulled up the rocky lane,
         Shouting and singing the shrill refrain
         "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,
         Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
         By the women o' Morble'ead!"

         Wrinkled scolds with hands on hips,
         Girls in bloom of cheek and lips,
         Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase
         Bacchus round some antique vase,
         Brief of skirt, with ankles bare,
         Loose of kerchief and loose of hair,
         With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns' twang,
         Over and over the Manads sang
         "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,
         Torr'd an' futherr'd an dorr'd in a corrt
         By the women o' Morble'ead!"

         Small pity for him!—He sailed away
         From a leaking ship, in Chaleur Bay,—
         Sailed away from a sinking wreck,
         With his own town's-people on her deck!
         "Lay by! lay by!" they called to him.
         Back he answered, "Sink or swim!
         Brag of your catch of fish again!"
         And off he sailed through the fog and rain!
         Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
         Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
         By the women of Marblehead!

         Fathoms deep in dark Chaleur
         That wreck shall lie forevermore.
         Mother and sister, wife and maid,
         Looked from the rocks of Marblehead
         Over the moaning and rainy sea,—
         Looked for the coming that might not be!
         What did the winds and the sea-birds say
         Of the cruel captain who sailed away?—
         Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
         Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
         By the women of Marblehead!

         Through the street, on either side,
         Up flew windows, doors swung wide;
         Sharp-tongued spinsters, old wives gray,
         Treble lent the fish-horn's bray.
         Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound,
         Hulks of old sailors run aground,
         Shook head, and fist, and hat, and cane,
         And cracked with curses the hoarse refrain
         "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,
         Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
         By the women o''Morble'ead!"

         Sweetly along the Salem road
         Bloom of orchard and lilac showed.
         Little the wicked skipper knew
         Of the fields so green and the sky so blue.
         Riding there in his sorry trim,
         Like to Indian idol glum and grim,
         Scarcely he seemed the sound to hear
         Of voices shouting, far and near
         "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,
         Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
         By the women o' Morble'ead!"

         "Hear me, neighbors!" at last he cried,—
         "What to me is this noisy ride?
         What is the shame that clothes the skin
         To the nameless horror that lives within?
         Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck,
         And hear a cry from a reeling deck!
         Hate me and curse me,—I only dread
         The hand of God and the face of the dead!"
         Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
         Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
         By the women of Marblehead!

         Then the wife of the skipper lost at sea
         Said, "God has touched him! why should we?"
         Said an old wife mourning her only son,
         "Cut the rogue's tether and let him run!"
         So with soft relentings and rude excuse,
         Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose,
         And gave him a cloak to hide him in,
         And left him alone with his shame and sin.
         Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
         Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
         By the women of Marblehead!

         1857.

## THE SYCAMORES.

Hugh Tallant was the first Irish resident of Haverhill, Mass. He planted the button-wood trees on the bank of the river below the village in the early part of the seventeenth century. Unfortunately this noble avenue is now nearly destroyed.

         IN the outskirts of the village,
         On the river's winding shores,
         Stand the Occidental plane-trees,
         Stand the ancient sycamores.

         One long century hath been numbered,
         And another half-way told,
         Since the rustic Irish gleeman
         Broke for them the virgin mould.

         Deftly set to Celtic music,
         At his violin's sound they grew,
         Through the moonlit eves of summer,
         Making Amphion's fable true.

         Rise again, then poor Hugh Tallant
         Pass in jerkin green along,
         With thy eyes brimful of laughter,
         And thy mouth as full of song.

         Pioneer of Erin's outcasts,
         With his fiddle and his pack;
         Little dreamed the village Saxons
         Of the myriads at his back.

         How he wrought with spade and fiddle,
         Delved by day and sang by night,
         With a hand that never wearied,
         And a heart forever light,—

         Still the gay tradition mingles
         With a record grave and drear,
         Like the rollic air of Cluny,
         With the solemn march of Mear.

         When the box-tree, white with blossoms,
         Made the sweet May woodlands glad,
         And the Aronia by the river
         Lighted up the swarming shad,

         And the bulging nets swept shoreward,
         With their silver-sided haul,
         Midst the shouts of dripping fishers,
         He was merriest of them all.

         When, among the jovial huskers,
         Love stole in at Labor's side,
         With the lusty airs of England,
         Soft his Celtic measures vied.

         Songs of love and wailing lyke—wake,
         And the merry fair's carouse;
         Of the wild Red Fox of Erin
         And the Woman of Three Cows,

         By the blazing hearths of winter,
         Pleasant seemed his simple tales,
         Midst the grimmer Yorkshire legends
         And the mountain myths of Wales.

         How the souls in Purgatory
         Scrambled up from fate forlorn,
         On St. Eleven's sackcloth ladder,
         Slyly hitched to Satan's horn.

         Of the fiddler who at Tara
         Played all night to ghosts of kings;
         Of the brown dwarfs, and the fairies
         Dancing in their moorland rings.

         Jolliest of our birds of singing,
         Best he loved the Bob-o-link.
         "Hush!" he 'd say, "the tipsy fairies
         Hear the little folks in drink!"

         Merry-faced, with spade and fiddle,
         Singing through the ancient town,
         Only this, of poor Hugh Tallant,
         Hath Tradition handed down.

         Not a stone his grave discloses;
         But if yet his spirit walks,
         'T is beneath the trees he planted,
         And when Bob-o-Lincoln talks;

         Green memorials of the gleeman I
         Linking still the river-shores,
         With their shadows cast by sunset,
         Stand Hugh Tallant's sycamores!

         When the Father of his Country
         Through the north-land riding came,
         And the roofs were starred with banners,
         And the steeples rang acclaim,—

         When each war-scarred Continental,
         Leaving smithy, mill, and farm,
         Waved his rusted sword in welcome,
         And shot off his old king's arm,—

         Slowly passed that August Presence
         Down the thronged and shouting street;
         Village girls as white as angels,
         Scattering flowers around his feet.

         Midway, where the plane-tree's shadow
         Deepest fell, his rein he drew
         On his stately head, uncovered,
         Cool and soft the west-wind blew.

         And he stood up in his stirrups,
         Looking up and looking down
         On the hills of Gold and Silver
         Rimming round the little town,—

         On the river, full of sunshine,
         To the lap of greenest vales
         Winding down from wooded headlands,
         Willow-skirted, white with sails.

         And he said, the landscape sweeping
         Slowly with his ungloved hand,
         "I have seen no prospect fairer
         In this goodly Eastern land."

         Then the bugles of his escort
         Stirred to life the cavalcade
         And that head, so bare and stately,
         Vanished down the depths of shade.

         Ever since, in town and farm-house,
         Life has had its ebb and flow;
         Thrice hath passed the human harvest
         To its garner green and low.

         But the trees the gleeman planted,
         Through the changes, changeless stand;
         As the marble calm of Tadmor
         Mocks the desert's shifting sand.

         Still the level moon at rising
         Silvers o'er each stately shaft;
         Still beneath them, half in shadow,
         Singing, glides the pleasure craft;

         Still beneath them, arm-enfolded,
         Love and Youth together stray;
         While, as heart to heart beats faster,
         More and more their feet delay.

         Where the ancient cobbler, Keezar,
         On the open hillside wrought,
         Singing, as he drew his stitches,
         Songs his German masters taught,

         Singing, with his gray hair floating
         Round his rosy ample face,—
         Now a thousand Saxon craftsmen
         Stitch and hammer in his place.

         All the pastoral lanes so grassy
         Now are Traffic's dusty streets;
         From the village, grown a city,
         Fast the rural grace retreats.

         But, still green, and tall, and stately,
         On the river's winding shores,
         Stand the Occidental plane-trees,
         Stand, Hugh Taliant's sycamores.

         1857.

## THE PIPES AT LUCKNOW.

### An incident of the Sepoy mutiny.

         PIPES of the misty moorlands,
         Voice of the glens and hills;
         The droning of the torrents,
         The treble of the rills!
         Not the braes of broom and heather,
         Nor the mountains dark with rain,
         Nor maiden bower, nor border tower,
         Have heard your sweetest strain!

         Dear to the Lowland reaper,
         And plaided mountaineer,—
         To the cottage and the castle
         The Scottish pipes are dear;—
         Sweet sounds the ancient pibroch
         O'er mountain, loch, and glade;
         But the sweetest of all music
         The pipes at Lucknow played.

         Day by day the Indian tiger
         Louder yelled, and nearer crept;
         Round and round the jungle-serpent
         Near and nearer circles swept.
         "Pray for rescue, wives and mothers,—
         Pray to-day!" the soldier said;
         "To-morrow, death's between us
         And the wrong and shame we dread."

         Oh, they listened, looked, and waited,
         Till their hope became despair;
         And the sobs of low bewailing
         Filled the pauses of their prayer.
         Then up spake a Scottish maiden,
         With her ear unto the ground
         "Dinna ye hear it?—dinna ye hear it?
         The pipes o' Havelock sound!"

         Hushed the wounded man his groaning;
         Hushed the wife her little ones;
         Alone they heard the drum-roll
         And the roar of Sepoy guns.
         But to sounds of home and childhood
         The Highland ear was true;—
         As her mother's cradle-crooning
         The mountain pipes she knew.

         Like the march of soundless music
         Through the vision of the seer,
         More of feeling than of hearing,
         Of the heart than of the ear,
         She knew the droning pibroch,
         She knew the Campbell's call
         "Hark! hear ye no' MacGregor's,
         The grandest o' them all!"

         Oh, they listened, dumb and breathless,
         And they caught the sound at last;
         Faint and far beyond the Goomtee
         Rose and fell the piper's blast
         Then a burst of wild thanksgiving
         Mingled woman's voice and man's;
         "God be praised!—the march of Havelock!
         The piping of the clans!"

         Louder, nearer, fierce as vengeance,
         Sharp and shrill as swords at strife,
         Came the wild MacGregor's clan-call,
         Stinging all the air to life.
         But when the far-off dust-cloud
         To plaided legions grew,
         Full tenderly and blithesomely
         The pipes of rescue blew!

         Round the silver domes of Lucknow,
         Moslem mosque and Pagan shrine,
         Breathed the air to Britons dearest,
         The air of Auld Lang Syne.
         O'er the cruel roll of war-drums
         Rose that sweet and homelike strain;
         And the tartan clove the turban,
         As the Goomtee cleaves the plain.

         Dear to the corn-land reaper
         And plaided mountaineer,—
         To the cottage and the castle
         The piper's song is dear.
         Sweet sounds the Gaelic pibroch
         O'er mountain, glen, and glade;
         But the sweetest of all music
         The Pipes at Lucknow played!

         1858.

## TELLING THE BEES.

A remarkable custom, brought from the Old Country, formerly prevailed in the rural districts of New England. On the death of a member of the family, the bees were at once informed of the event, and their hives dressed in mourning. This ceremonial was supposed to be necessary to prevent the swarms from leaving their hives and seeking a new home.

         HERE is the place; right over the hill
         Runs the path I took;
         You can see the gap in the old wall still,
         And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook.

         There is the house, with the gate red-barred,
         And the poplars tall;
         And the barn's brown length, and the cattle-yard,
         And the white horns tossing above the wall.

         There are the beehives ranged in the sun;
         And down by the brink
         Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed-o'errun,
         Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink.

         A year has gone, as the tortoise goes,
         Heavy and slow;
         And the same rose blooms, and the same sun glows,
         And the same brook sings of a year ago.

         There's the same sweet clover-smell in the breeze;
         And the June sun warm
         Tangles his wings of fire in the trees,
         Setting, as then, over Fernside farm.

         I mind me how with a lover's care
         From my Sunday coat
         I brushed off the burrs, and smoothed my hair,
         And cooled at the brookside my brow and
         throat.

         Since we parted, a month had passed,—
         To love, a year;
         Down through the beeches I looked at last
         On the little red gate and the well-sweep near.

         I can see it all now,—the slantwise rain
         Of light through the leaves,
         The sundown's blaze on her window-pane,
         The bloom of her roses under the eaves.

         Just the same as a month before,—
         The house and the trees,
         The barn's brown gable, the vine by the door,—
         Nothing changed but the hives of bees.

         Before them, under the garden wall,
         Forward and back,
         Went drearily singing the chore-girl small,
         Draping each hive with a shred of black.

         Trembling, I listened: the summer sun
         Had the chill of snow;
         For I knew she was telling the bees of one
         Gone on the journey we all must go.

         Then I said to myself, "My Mary weeps
         For the dead to-day;
         Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps
         The fret and the pain of his age away."

         But her dog whined low; on the doorway sill,
         With his cane to his chin,
         The old man sat; and the chore-girl still
         Sung to the bees stealing out and in.

         And the song she was singing ever since
         In my ear sounds on:—
         "Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence!
         Mistress Mary is dead and gone!"

         1858.

## THE SWAN SONG OF PARSON AVERY.

In Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts Bay front 1623 to 1636 may be found Anthony Thacher's Narrative of his Shipwreck. Thacher was Avery's companion and survived to tell the tale. Mather's Magnalia, III. 2, gives further Particulars of Parson Avery's End, and suggests the title of the poem.

         WHEN the reaper's task was ended, and the
         summer wearing late,
         Parson Avery sailed from Newbury, with his wife
         and children eight,
         Dropping down the river-harbor in the shallop
         "Watch and Wait."

         Pleasantly lay the clearings in the mellow summer-
         morn,
         With the newly planted orchards dropping their
         fruits first-born,
         And the home-roofs like brown islands amid a sea
         of corn.

         Broad meadows reached out 'seaward the tided
         creeks between,
         And hills rolled wave-like inland, with oaks and
         walnuts green;—
         A fairer home, a—goodlier land, his eyes had never
         seen.

         Yet away sailed Parson Avery, away where duty led,
         And the voice of God seemed calling, to break the
         living bread
         To the souls of fishers starving on the rocks of
         Marblehead.

         All day they sailed: at nightfall the pleasant land-
         breeze died,
         The blackening sky, at midnight, its starry lights
         denied,
         And far and low the thunder of tempest prophesied.

         Blotted out were all the coast-lines, gone were rock,
         and wood, and sand;
         Grimly anxious stood the skipper with the rudder
         in his hand,
         And questioned of the darkness what was sea and
         what was land.

         And the preacher heard his dear ones, nestled
         round him, weeping sore,
         "Never heed, my little children! Christ is walking
         on before;
         To the pleasant land of heaven, where the sea shall
         be no more."

         All at once the great cloud parted, like a curtain
         drawn aside,
         To let down the torch of lightning on the terror
         far and wide;
         And the thunder and the whirlwind together smote
         the tide.

         There was wailing in the shallop, woman's wail
         and man's despair,
         A crash of breaking timbers on the rocks so sharp
         and bare,
         And, through it all, the murmur of Father Avery's
         prayer.

         From his struggle in the darkness with the wild
         waves and the blast,
         On a rock, where every billow broke above him as
         it passed,
         Alone, of all his household, the man of God was
         cast.

         There a comrade heard him praying, in the pause
         of wave and wind
         "All my own have gone before me, and I linger
         just behind;
         Not for life I ask, but only for the rest Thy
         ransomed find!

         "In this night of death I challenge the promise of
         Thy word!—
         Let me see the great salvation of which mine ears
         have heard!—
         Let me pass from hence forgiven, through the
         grace of Christ, our Lord!

         "In the baptism of these waters wash white my
         every sin,
         And let me follow up to Thee my household and
         my kin!
         Open the sea-gate of Thy heaven, and let me enter
         in!"

         When the Christian sings his death-song, all the
         listening heavens draw near,
         And the angels, leaning over the walls of crystal,
         hear
         How the notes so faint and broken swell to music
         in God's ear.

         The ear of God was open to His servant's last
         request;
         As the strong wave swept him downward the sweet
         hymn upward pressed,
         And the soul of Father Avery went, singing, to its
         rest.

         There was wailing on the mainland, from the rocks
         of Marblehead;
         In the stricken church of Newbury the notes of
         prayer were read;
         And long, by board and hearthstone, the living
         mourned the dead.

         And still the fishers outbound, or scudding from
         the squall,
         With grave and reverent faces, the ancient tale
         recall,
         When they see the white waves breaking on the
         Rock of Avery's Fall!

         1808.

## THE DOUBLE-HEADED SNAKE OF NEWBURY.

"Concerning ye Amphisbaena, as soon as I received your commands, I made diligent inquiry: . . . he assures me yt it had really two heads, one at each end; two mouths, two stings or tongues."—REV. CHRISTOPHER TOPPAN to COTTON MATHER.

         FAR away in the twilight time
         Of every people, in every clime,
         Dragons and griffins and monsters dire,
         Born of water, and air, and fire,
         Or nursed, like the Python, in the mud
         And ooze of the old Deucalion flood,
         Crawl and wriggle and foam with rage,
         Through dusk tradition and ballad age.
         So from the childhood of Newbury town
         And its time of fable the tale comes down
         Of a terror which haunted bush and brake,
         The Amphisbaena, the Double Snake!

         Thou who makest the tale thy mirth,
         Consider that strip of Christian earth
         On the desolate shore of a sailless sea,
         Full of terror and mystery,
         Half redeemed from the evil hold
         Of the wood so dreary, and dark, and old,
         Which drank with its lips of leaves the dew
         When Time was young, and the world was new,
         And wove its shadows with sun and moon,
         Ere the stones of Cheops were squared and hewn.
         Think of the sea's dread monotone,
         Of the mournful wail from the pine-wood blown,
         Of the strange, vast splendors that lit the North,
         Of the troubled throes of the quaking earth,
         And the dismal tales the Indian told,
         Till the settler's heart at his hearth grew cold,
         And he shrank from the tawny wizard boasts,
         And the hovering shadows seemed full of ghosts,
         And above, below, and on every side,
         The fear of his creed seemed verified;—
         And think, if his lot were now thine own,
         To grope with terrors nor named nor known,
         How laxer muscle and weaker nerve
         And a feebler faith thy need might serve;
         And own to thyself the wonder more
         That the snake had two heads, and not a score!

         Whether he lurked in the Oldtown fen
         Or the gray earth-flax of the Devil's Den,
         Or swam in the wooded Artichoke,
         Or coiled by the Northman's Written Rock,
         Nothing on record is left to show;
         Only the fact that he lived, we know,
         And left the cast of a double head
         In the scaly mask which he yearly shed.
         For he carried a head where his tail should be,
         And the two, of course, could never agree,
         But wriggled about with main and might,
         Now to the left and now to the right;
         Pulling and twisting this way and that,
         Neither knew what the other was at.

         A snake with two beads, lurking so near!
         Judge of the wonder, guess at the fear!
         Think what ancient gossips might say,
         Shaking their heads in their dreary way,
         Between the meetings on Sabbath-day!
         How urchins, searching at day's decline
         The Common Pasture for sheep or kine,
         The terrible double-ganger heard
         In leafy rustle or whir of bird!
         Think what a zest it gave to the sport,
         In berry-time, of the younger sort,
         As over pastures blackberry-twined,
         Reuben and Dorothy lagged behind,
         And closer and closer, for fear of harm,
         The maiden clung to her lover's arm;
         And how the spark, who was forced to stay,
         By his sweetheart's fears, till the break of day,
         Thanked the snake for the fond delay.

         Far and wide the tale was told,
         Like a snowball growing while it rolled.
         The nurse hushed with it the baby's cry;
         And it served, in the worthy minister's eye,
         To paint the primitive serpent by.
         Cotton Mather came galloping down
         All the way to Newbury town,
         With his eyes agog and his ears set wide,
         And his marvellous inkhorn at his side;
         Stirring the while in the shallow pool
         Of his brains for the lore he learned at school,
         To garnish the story, with here a streak
         Of Latin, and there another of Greek
         And the tales he heard and the notes he took,
         Behold! are they not in his Wonder-Book?

         Stories, like dragons, are hard to kill.
         If the snake does not, the tale runs still
         In Byfield Meadows, on Pipestave Hill.
         And still, whenever husband and wife
         Publish the shame of their daily strife,
         And, with mad cross-purpose, tug and strain
         At either end of the marriage-chain,
         The gossips say, with a knowing shake
         Of their gray heads, "Look at the Double Snake
         One in body and two in will,
         The Amphisbaena is living still!"

         1859.

## MABEL MARTIN.

### A HARVEST IDYL.

Susanna Martin, an aged woman of Amesbury, Mass., was tried and executed for the alleged crime of witchcraft. Her home was in what is now known as Pleasant Valley on the Merrimac, a little above the old Ferry way, where, tradition says, an attempt was made to assassinate Sir Edmund Andros on his way to Falmouth (afterward Portland) and Pemaquid, which was frustrated by a warning timely given. Goody Martin was the only woman hanged on the north side of the Merrimac during the dreadful delusion. The aged wife of Judge Bradbury who lived on the other side of the Powow River was imprisoned and would have been put to death but for the collapse of the hideous persecution.

The substance of the poem which follows was published under the name of The Witch's Daughter, in The National Era in 1857. In 1875 my publishers desired to issue it with illustrations, and I then enlarged it and otherwise altered it to its present form. The principal addition was in the verses which constitute Part I.

## PROEM.

         I CALL the old time back: I bring my lay
         in tender memory of the summer day
         When, where our native river lapsed away,

         We dreamed it over, while the thrushes made
         Songs of their own, and the great pine-trees laid
         On warm noonlights the masses of their shade.

         And she was with us, living o'er again
         Her life in ours, despite of years and pain,—
         The Autumn's brightness after latter rain.

         Beautiful in her holy peace as one
         Who stands, at evening, when the work is done,
         Glorified in the setting of the sun!

         Her memory makes our common landscape seem
         Fairer than any of which painters dream;
         Lights the brown hills and sings in every stream;

         For she whose speech was always truth's pure gold
         Heard, not unpleased, its simple legends told,
         And loved with us the beautiful and old.

## I. THE RIVER VALLEY.

         Across the level tableland,
         A grassy, rarely trodden way,
         With thinnest skirt of birchen spray

         And stunted growth of cedar, leads
         To where you see the dull plain fall
         Sheer off, steep-slanted, ploughed by all

         The seasons' rainfalls. On its brink
         The over-leaning harebells swing,
         With roots half bare the pine-trees cling;

         And, through the shadow looking west,
         You see the wavering river flow
         Along a vale, that far below

         Holds to the sun, the sheltering hills
         And glimmering water-line between,
         Broad fields of corn and meadows green,

         And fruit-bent orchards grouped around
         The low brown roofs and painted eaves,
         And chimney-tops half hid in leaves.

         No warmer valley hides behind
         Yon wind-scourged sand-dunes, cold and bleak;
         No fairer river comes to seek

         The wave-sung welcome of the sea,
         Or mark the northmost border line
         Of sun-loved growths of nut and vine.

         Here, ground-fast in their native fields,
         Untempted by the city's gain,
         The quiet farmer folk remain

         Who bear the pleasant name of Friends,
         And keep their fathers' gentle ways
         And simple speech of Bible days;

         In whose neat homesteads woman holds
         With modest ease her equal place,
         And wears upon her tranquil face

         The look of one who, merging not
         Her self-hood in another's will,
         Is love's and duty's handmaid still.

         Pass with me down the path that winds
         Through birches to the open land,
         Where, close upon the river strand

         You mark a cellar, vine o'errun,
         Above whose wall of loosened stones
         The sumach lifts its reddening cones,

         And the black nightshade's berries shine,
         And broad, unsightly burdocks fold
         The household ruin, century-old.

         Here, in the dim colonial time
         Of sterner lives and gloomier faith,
         A woman lived, tradition saith,

         Who wrought her neighbors foul annoy,
         And witched and plagued the country-side,
         Till at the hangman's hand she died.

         Sit with me while the westering day
         Falls slantwise down the quiet vale,
         And, haply ere yon loitering sail,

         That rounds the upper headland, falls
         Below Deer Island's pines, or sees
         Behind it Hawkswood's belt of trees

         Rise black against the sinking sun,
         My idyl of its days of old,
         The valley's legend, shall be told.

## II. THE HUSKING.

         It was the pleasant harvest-time,
         When cellar-bins are closely stowed,
         And garrets bend beneath their load,

         And the old swallow-haunted barns,—
         Brown-gabled, long, and full of seams
         Through which the rooted sunlight streams,

         And winds blow freshly in, to shake
         The red plumes of the roosted cocks,
         And the loose hay-mow's scented locks,

         Are filled with summer's ripened stores,
         Its odorous grass and barley sheaves,
         From their low scaffolds to their eaves.

         On Esek Harden's oaken floor,
         With many an autumn threshing worn,
         Lay the heaped ears of unhusked corn.

         And thither came young men and maids,
         Beneath a moon that, large and low,
         Lit that sweet eve of long ago.

         They took their places; some by chance,
         And others by a merry voice
         Or sweet smile guided to their choice.

         How pleasantly the rising moon,
         Between the shadow of the mows,
         Looked on them through the great elm-boughs!

         On sturdy boyhood, sun-embrowned,
         On girlhood with its solid curves
         Of healthful strength and painless nerves!

         And jests went round, and laughs that made
         The house-dog answer with his howl,
         And kept astir the barn-yard fowl;

         And quaint old songs their fathers sung
         In Derby dales and Yorkshire moors,
         Ere Norman William trod their shores;

         And tales, whose merry license shook
         The fat sides of the Saxon thane,
         Forgetful of the hovering Dane,—

         Rude plays to Celt and Cimbri known,
         The charms and riddles that beguiled
         On Oxus' banks the young world's child,—

         That primal picture-speech wherein
         Have youth and maid the story told,
         So new in each, so dateless old,

         Recalling pastoral Ruth in her
         Who waited, blushing and demure,
         The red-ear's kiss of forfeiture.

         But still the sweetest voice was mute
         That river-valley ever heard
         From lips of maid or throat of bird;

         For Mabel Martin sat apart,
         And let the hay-mow's shadow fall
         Upon the loveliest face of all.

         She sat apart, as one forbid,
         Who knew that none would condescend
         To own the Witch-wife's child a friend.

         The seasons scarce had gone their round,
         Since curious thousands thronged to see
         Her mother at the gallows-tree;

         And mocked the prison-palsied limbs
         That faltered on the fatal stairs,
         And wan lip trembling with its prayers!

         Few questioned of the sorrowing child,
         Or, when they saw the mother die;
         Dreamed of the daughter's agony.

         They went up to their homes that day,
         As men and Christians justified
         God willed it, and the wretch had died!

         Dear God and Father of us all,
         Forgive our faith in cruel lies,—
         Forgive the blindness that denies!

         Forgive thy creature when he takes,
         For the all-perfect love Thou art,
         Some grim creation of his heart.

         Cast down our idols, overturn
         Our bloody altars; let us see
         Thyself in Thy humanity!

         Young Mabel from her mother's grave
         Crept to her desolate hearth-stone,
         And wrestled with her fate alone;

         With love, and anger, and despair,
         The phantoms of disordered sense,
         The awful doubts of Providence!

         Oh, dreary broke the winter days,
         And dreary fell the winter nights
         When, one by one, the neighboring lights

         Went out, and human sounds grew still,
         And all the phantom-peopled dark
         Closed round her hearth-fire's dying spark.

         And summer days were sad and long,
         And sad the uncompanioned eyes,
         And sadder sunset-tinted leaves,

         And Indian Summer's airs of balm;
         She scarcely felt the soft caress,
         The beauty died of loneliness!

         The school-boys jeered her as they passed,
         And, when she sought the house of prayer,
         Her mother's curse pursued her there.

         And still o'er many a neighboring door
         She saw the horseshoe's curved charm,
         To guard against her mother's harm!

         That mother, poor and sick and lame,
         Who daily, by the old arm-chair,
         Folded her withered hands in prayer;—

         Who turned, in Salem's dreary jail,
         Her worn old Bible o'er and o'er,
         When her dim eyes could read no more!

         Sore tried and pained, the poor girl kept
         Her faith, and trusted that her way,
         So dark, would somewhere meet the day.

         And still her weary wheel went round
         Day after day, with no relief
         Small leisure have the poor for grief.

## III. THE CHAMPION.

         So in the shadow Mabel sits;
         Untouched by mirth she sees and hears,
         Her smile is sadder than her tears.

         But cruel eyes have found her out,
         And cruel lips repeat her name,
         And taunt her with her mother's shame.

         She answered not with railing words,
         But drew her apron o'er her face,
         And, sobbing, glided from the place.

         And only pausing at the door,
         Her sad eyes met the troubled gaze
         Of one who, in her better days,

         Had been her warm and steady friend,
         Ere yet her mother's doom had made
         Even Esek Harden half afraid.

         He felt that mute appeal of tears,
         And, starting, with an angry frown,
         Hushed all the wicked murmurs down.

         "Good neighbors mine," he sternly said,
         "This passes harmless mirth or jest;
         I brook no insult to my guest.

         "She is indeed her mother's child;
         But God's sweet pity ministers
         Unto no whiter soul than hers.

         "Let Goody Martin rest in peace;
         I never knew her harm a fly,
         And witch or not, God knows—not I.

         "I know who swore her life away;
         And as God lives, I'd not condemn
         An Indian dog on word of them."

         The broadest lands in all the town,
         The skill to guide, the power to awe,
         Were Harden's; and his word was law.

         None dared withstand him to his face,
         But one sly maiden spake aside
         "The little witch is evil-eyed!

         "Her mother only killed a cow,
         Or witched a churn or dairy-pan;
         But she, forsooth, must charm a man!"

## IV. IN THE SHADOW.

         Poor Mabel, homeward turning, passed
         The nameless terrors of the wood,
         And saw, as if a ghost pursued,

         Her shadow gliding in the moon;
         The soft breath of the west-wind gave
         A chill as from her mother's grave.

         How dreary seemed the silent house!
         Wide in the moonbeams' ghastly glare
         Its windows had a dead man's stare!

         And, like a gaunt and spectral hand,
         The tremulous shadow of a birch
         Reached out and touched the door's low porch,

         As if to lift its latch; hard by,
         A sudden warning call she beard,
         The night-cry of a boding bird.

         She leaned against the door; her face,
         So fair, so young, so full of pain,
         White in the moonlight's silver rain.

         The river, on its pebbled rim,
         Made music such as childhood knew;
         The door-yard tree was whispered through

         By voices such as childhood's ear
         Had heard in moonlights long ago;
         And through the willow-boughs below.

         She saw the rippled waters shine;
         Beyond, in waves of shade and light,
         The hills rolled off into the night.

         She saw and heard, but over all
         A sense of some transforming spell,
         The shadow of her sick heart fell.

         And still across the wooded space
         The harvest lights of Harden shone,
         And song and jest and laugh went on.

         And he, so gentle, true, and strong,
         Of men the bravest and the best,
         Had he, too, scorned her with the rest?

         She strove to drown her sense of wrong,
         And, in her old and simple way,
         To teach her bitter heart to pray.

         Poor child! the prayer, begun in faith,
         Grew to a low, despairing cry
         Of utter misery: "Let me die!

         "Oh! take me from the scornful eyes,
         And hide me where the cruel speech
         And mocking finger may not reach!

         "I dare not breathe my mother's name
         A daughter's right I dare not crave
         To weep above her unblest grave!

         "Let me not live until my heart,
         With few to pity, and with none
         To love me, hardens into stone.

         "O God! have mercy on Thy child,
         Whose faith in Thee grows weak and small,
         And take me ere I lose it all!"

         A shadow on the moonlight fell,
         And murmuring wind and wave became
         A voice whose burden was her name.

## V. THE BETROTHAL.

         Had then God heard her? Had He sent
         His angel down? In flesh and blood,
         Before her Esek Harden stood!

         He laid his hand upon her arm
         "Dear Mabel, this no more shall be;
         Who scoffs at you must scoff at me.

         "You know rough Esek Harden well;
         And if he seems no suitor gay,
         And if his hair is touched with gray,

         "The maiden grown shall never find
         His heart less warm than when she smiled,
         Upon his knees, a little child!"

         Her tears of grief were tears of joy,
         As, folded in his strong embrace,
         She looked in Esek Harden's face.

         "O truest friend of all'" she said,
         "God bless you for your kindly thought,
         And make me worthy of my lot!"

         He led her forth, and, blent in one,
         Beside their happy pathway ran
         The shadows of the maid and man.

         He led her through his dewy fields,
         To where the swinging lanterns glowed,
         And through the doors the huskers showed.

         "Good friends and neighbors!" Esek said,
         "I'm weary of this lonely life;
         In Mabel see my chosen wife!

         "She greets you kindly, one and all;
         The past is past, and all offence
         Falls harmless from her innocence.

         "Henceforth she stands no more alone;
         You know what Esek Harden is;—
         He brooks no wrong to him or his.

         "Now let the merriest tales be told,
         And let the sweetest songs be sung
         That ever made the old heart young!

         "For now the lost has found a home;
         And a lone hearth shall brighter burn,
         As all the household joys return!"

         Oh, pleasantly the harvest-moon,
         Between the shadow of the mows,
         Looked on them through the great elm—boughs!

         On Mabel's curls of golden hair,
         On Esek's shaggy strength it fell;
         And the wind whispered, "It is well!"

## THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL SEWALL.

The prose version of this prophecy is to be found in Sewall's The New Heaven upon the New Earth, 1697, quoted in Joshua Coffin's History of Newbury. Judge Sewall's father, Henry Sewall, was one of the pioneers of Newbury.

         UP and down the village streets
         Strange are the forms my fancy meets,
         For the thoughts and things of to-day are hid,
         And through the veil of a closed lid
         The ancient worthies I see again
         I hear the tap of the elder's cane,
         And his awful periwig I see,
         And the silver buckles of shoe and knee.
         Stately and slow, with thoughtful air,
         His black cap hiding his whitened hair,
         Walks the Judge of the great Assize,
         Samuel Sewall the good and wise.
         His face with lines of firmness wrought,
         He wears the look of a man unbought,
         Who swears to his hurt and changes not;
         Yet, touched and softened nevertheless
         With the grace of Christian gentleness,
         The face that a child would climb to kiss!
         True and tender and brave and just,
         That man might honor and woman trust.

         Touching and sad, a tale is told,
         Like a penitent hymn of the Psalmist old,
         Of the fast which the good man lifelong kept to
         With a haunting sorrow that never slept,
         As the circling year brought round the time
         Of an error that left the sting of crime,
         When he sat on the bench of the witchcraft courts,
         With the laws of Moses and Hale's Reports,
         And spake, in the name of both, the word
         That gave the witch's neck to the cord,
         And piled the oaken planks that pressed
         The feeble life from the warlock's breast!
         All the day long, from dawn to dawn,
         His door was bolted, his curtain drawn;
         No foot on his silent threshold trod,
         No eye looked on him save that of God,
         As he baffled the ghosts of the dead with charms
         Of penitent tears, and prayers, and psalms,
         And, with precious proofs from the sacred word
         Of the boundless pity and love of the Lord,
         His faith confirmed and his trust renewed
         That the sin of his ignorance, sorely rued,
         Might be washed away in the mingled flood
         Of his human sorrow and Christ's dear blood!

         Green forever the memory be
         Of the Judge of the old Theocracy,
         Whom even his errors glorified,
         Like a far-seen, sunlit mountain-side
         By the cloudy shadows which o'er it glide I
         Honor and praise to the Puritan
         Who the halting step of his age outran,
         And, seeing the infinite worth of man
         In the priceless gift the Father gave,
         In the infinite love that stooped to save,
         Dared not brand his brother a slave
         "Who doth such wrong," he was wont to say,
         In his own quaint, picture-loving way,
         "Flings up to Heaven a hand-grenade
         Which God shall cast down upon his head!"

         Widely as heaven and hell, contrast
         That brave old jurist of the past
         And the cunning trickster and knave of courts
         Who the holy features of Truth distorts,
         Ruling as right the will of the strong,
         Poverty, crime, and weakness wrong;
         Wide-eared to power, to the wronged and weak
         Deaf as Egypt's gods of leek;
         Scoffing aside at party's nod
         Order of nature and law of God;
         For whose dabbled ermine respect were waste,
         Reverence folly, and awe misplaced;
         Justice of whom 't were vain to seek
         As from Koordish robber or Syrian Sheik!
         Oh, leave the wretch to his bribes and sins;
         Let him rot in the web of lies he spins!
         To the saintly soul of the early day,
         To the Christian judge, let us turn and say
         "Praise and thanks for an honest man!—
         Glory to God for the Puritan!"

         I see, far southward, this quiet day,
         The hills of Newbury rolling away,
         With the many tints of the season gay,
         Dreamily blending in autumn mist
         Crimson, and gold, and amethyst.
         Long and low, with dwarf trees crowned,
         Plum Island lies, like a whale aground,
         A stone's toss over the narrow sound.
         Inland, as far as the eye can go,
         The hills curve round like a bended bow;
         A silver arrow from out them sprung,
         I see the shine of the Quasycung;
         And, round and round, over valley and hill,
         Old roads winding, as old roads will,
         Here to a ferry, and there to a mill;
         And glimpses of chimneys and gabled eaves,
         Through green elm arches and maple leaves,—
         Old homesteads sacred to all that can
         Gladden or sadden the heart of man,
         Over whose thresholds of oak and stone
         Life and Death have come and gone
         There pictured tiles in the fireplace show,
         Great beams sag from the ceiling low,
         The dresser glitters with polished wares,
         The long clock ticks on the foot-worn stairs,
         And the low, broad chimney shows the crack
         By the earthquake made a century back.
         Up from their midst springs the village spire
         With the crest of its cock in the sun afire;
         Beyond are orchards and planting lands,
         And great salt marshes and glimmering sands,
         And, where north and south the coast-lines run,
         The blink of the sea in breeze and sun!

         I see it all like a chart unrolled,
         But my thoughts are full of the past and old,
         I hear the tales of my boyhood told;
         And the shadows and shapes of early days
         Flit dimly by in the veiling haze,
         With measured movement and rhythmic chime
         Weaving like shuttles my web of rhyme.
         I think of the old man wise and good
         Who once on yon misty hillsides stood,
         (A poet who never measured rhyme,
         A seer unknown to his dull-eared time,)
         And, propped on his staff of age, looked down,
         With his boyhood's love, on his native town,
         Where, written, as if on its hills and plains,
         His burden of prophecy yet remains,
         For the voices of wood, and wave, and wind
         To read in the ear of the musing mind:—

         "As long as Plum Island, to guard the coast
         As God appointed, shall keep its post;
         As long as a salmon shall haunt the deep
         Of Merrimac River, or sturgeon leap;
         As long as pickerel swift and slim,
         Or red-backed perch, in Crane Pond swim;
         As long as the annual sea-fowl know
         Their time to come and their time to go;
         As long as cattle shall roam at will
         The green, grass meadows by Turkey Hill;
         As long as sheep shall look from the side
         Of Oldtown Hill on marishes wide,
         And Parker River, and salt-sea tide;
         As long as a wandering pigeon shall search
         The fields below from his white-oak perch,
         When the barley-harvest is ripe and shorn,
         And the dry husks fall from the standing corn;
         As long as Nature shall not grow old,
         Nor drop her work from her doting hold,
         And her care for the Indian corn forget,
         And the yellow rows in pairs to set;—
         So long shall Christians here be born,
         Grow up and ripen as God's sweet corn!—
         By the beak of bird, by the breath of frost,
         Shall never a holy ear be lost,
         But, husked by Death in the Planter's sight,
         Be sown again in the fields of light!"

         The Island still is purple with plums,
         Up the river the salmon comes,
         The sturgeon leaps, and the wild-fowl feeds
         On hillside berries and marish seeds,—
         All the beautiful signs remain,
         From spring-time sowing to autumn rain
         The good man's vision returns again!
         And let us hope, as well we can,
         That the Silent Angel who garners man
         May find some grain as of old lie found
         In the human cornfield ripe and sound,
         And the Lord of the Harvest deign to own
         The precious seed by the fathers sown!

         1859.

## THE RED RIPER VOYAGEUR.

         OUT and in the river is winding
         The links of its long, red chain,
         Through belts of dusky pine-land
         And gusty leagues of plain.

         Only, at times, a smoke-wreath
         With the drifting cloud-rack joins,—
         The smoke of the hunting-lodges
         Of the wild Assiniboins.

         Drearily blows the north-wind
         From the land of ice and snow;
         The eyes that look are weary,
         And heavy the hands that row.

         And with one foot on the water,
         And one upon the shore,
         The Angel of Shadow gives warning
         That day shall be no more.

         Is it the clang of wild-geese?
         Is it the Indian's yell,
         That lends to the voice of the north-wind
         The tones of a far-off bell?

         The voyageur smiles as he listens
         To the sound that grows apace;
         Well he knows the vesper ringing
         Of the bells of St. Boniface.

         The bells of the Roman Mission,
         That call from their turrets twain,
         To the boatman on the river,
         To the hunter on the plain!

         Even so in our mortal journey
         The bitter north-winds blow,
         And thus upon life's Red River
         Our hearts, as oarsmen, row.

         And when the Angel of Shadow
         Rests his feet on wave and shore,
         And our eyes grow dim with watching
         And our hearts faint at the oar,

         Happy is he who heareth
         The signal of his release
         In the bells of the Holy City,
         The chimes of eternal peace!

         1859

## THE PREACHER.

George Whitefield, the celebrated preacher, died at Newburyport in 1770, and was buried under the church which has since borne his name.

         ITS windows flashing to the sky,
         Beneath a thousand roofs of brown,
         Far down the vale, my friend and I
         Beheld the old and quiet town;
         The ghostly sails that out at sea
         Flapped their white wings of mystery;
         The beaches glimmering in the sun,
         And the low wooded capes that run
         Into the sea-mist north and south;
         The sand-bluffs at the river's mouth;
         The swinging chain-bridge, and, afar,
         The foam-line of the harbor-bar.

         Over the woods and meadow-lands
         A crimson-tinted shadow lay,
         Of clouds through which the setting day
         Flung a slant glory far away.
         It glittered on the wet sea-sands,
         It flamed upon the city's panes,
         Smote the white sails of ships that wore
         Outward or in, and glided o'er
         The steeples with their veering vanes!

         Awhile my friend with rapid search
         O'erran the landscape. "Yonder spire
         Over gray roofs, a shaft of fire;
         What is it, pray?"—"The Whitefield Church!
         Walled about by its basement stones,
         There rest the marvellous prophet's bones."
         Then as our homeward way we walked,
         Of the great preacher's life we talked;
         And through the mystery of our theme
         The outward glory seemed to stream,
         And Nature's self interpreted
         The doubtful record of the dead;
         And every level beam that smote
         The sails upon the dark afloat
         A symbol of the light became,
         Which touched the shadows of our blame,
         With tongues of Pentecostal flame.

         Over the roofs of the pioneers
         Gathers the moss of a hundred years;
         On man and his works has passed the change
         Which needs must be in a century's range.
         The land lies open and warm in the sun,
         Anvils clamor and mill-wheels run,—
         Flocks on the hillsides, herds on the plain,
         The wilderness gladdened with fruit and grain!
         But the living faith of the settlers old
         A dead profession their children hold;
         To the lust of office and greed of trade
         A stepping-stone is the altar made.

         The church, to place and power the door,
         Rebukes the sin of the world no more,
         Nor sees its Lord in the homeless poor.
         Everywhere is the grasping hand,
         And eager adding of land to land;
         And earth, which seemed to the fathers meant
         But as a pilgrim's wayside tent,—
         A nightly shelter to fold away
         When the Lord should call at the break of day,—
         Solid and steadfast seems to be,
         And Time has forgotten Eternity!

         But fresh and green from the rotting roots
         Of primal forests the young growth shoots;
         From the death of the old the new proceeds,
         And the life of truth from the rot of creeds
         On the ladder of God, which upward leads,
         The steps of progress are human needs.
         For His judgments still are a mighty deep,
         And the eyes of His providence never sleep
         When the night is darkest He gives the morn;
         When the famine is sorest, the wine and corn!

         In the church of the wilderness Edwards wrought,
         Shaping his creed at the forge of thought;
         And with Thor's own hammer welded and bent
         The iron links of his argument,
         Which strove to grasp in its mighty span
         The purpose of God and the fate of man
         Yet faithful still, in his daily round
         To the weak, and the poor, and sin-sick found,
         The schoolman's lore and the casuist's art
         Drew warmth and life from his fervent heart.

         Had he not seen in the solitudes
         Of his deep and dark Northampton woods
         A vision of love about him fall?
         Not the blinding splendor which fell on Saul,
         But the tenderer glory that rests on them
         Who walk in the New Jerusalem,
         Where never the sun nor moon are known,
         But the Lord and His love are the light alone
         And watching the sweet, still countenance
         Of the wife of his bosom rapt in trance,
         Had he not treasured each broken word
         Of the mystical wonder seen and heard;
         And loved the beautiful dreamer more
         That thus to the desert of earth she bore
         Clusters of Eshcol from Canaan's shore?

         As the barley-winnower, holding with pain
         Aloft in waiting his chaff and grain,
         Joyfully welcomes the far-off breeze
         Sounding the pine-tree's slender keys,
         So he who had waited long to hear
         The sound of the Spirit drawing near,
         Like that which the son of Iddo heard
         When the feet of angels the myrtles stirred,
         Felt the answer of prayer, at last,
         As over his church the afflatus passed,
         Breaking its sleep as breezes break
         To sun-bright ripples a stagnant lake.

         At first a tremor of silent fear,
         The creep of the flesh at danger near,
         A vague foreboding and discontent,
         Over the hearts of the people went.
         All nature warned in sounds and signs
         The wind in the tops of the forest pines
         In the name of the Highest called to prayer,
         As the muezzin calls from the minaret stair.
         Through ceiled chambers of secret sin
         Sudden and strong the light shone in;
         A guilty sense of his neighbor's needs
         Startled the man of title-deeds;
         The trembling hand of the worldling shook
         The dust of years from the Holy Book;
         And the psalms of David, forgotten long,
         Took the place of the scoffer's song.

         The impulse spread like the outward course
         Of waters moved by a central force;
         The tide of spiritual life rolled down
         From inland mountains to seaboard town.

         Prepared and ready the altar stands
         Waiting the prophet's outstretched hands
         And prayer availing, to downward call
         The fiery answer in view of all.
         Hearts are like wax in the furnace; who
         Shall mould, and shape, and cast them anew?
         Lo! by the Merrimac Whitefield stands
         In the temple that never was made by hands,—
         Curtains of azure, and crystal wall,
         And dome of the sunshine over all—
         A homeless pilgrim, with dubious name
         Blown about on the winds of fame;
         Now as an angel of blessing classed,
         And now as a mad enthusiast.
         Called in his youth to sound and gauge
         The moral lapse of his race and age,
         And, sharp as truth, the contrast draw
         Of human frailty and perfect law;
         Possessed by the one dread thought that lent
         Its goad to his fiery temperament,
         Up and down the world he went,
         A John the Baptist crying, Repent!

         No perfect whole can our nature make;
         Here or there the circle will break;
         The orb of life as it takes the light
         On one side leaves the other in night.
         Never was saint so good and great
         As to give no chance at St. Peter's gate
         For the plea of the Devil's advocate.
         So, incomplete by his being's law,
         The marvellous preacher had his flaw;
         With step unequal, and lame with faults,
         His shade on the path of History halts.

         Wisely and well said the Eastern bard
         Fear is easy, but love is hard,—
         Easy to glow with the Santon's rage,
         And walk on the Meccan pilgrimage;
         But he is greatest and best who can
         Worship Allah by loving man.
         Thus he,—to whom, in the painful stress
         Of zeal on fire from its own excess,
         Heaven seemed so vast and earth so small
         That man was nothing, since God was all,—
         Forgot, as the best at times have done,
         That the love of the Lord and of man are one.
         Little to him whose feet unshod
         The thorny path of the desert trod,
         Careless of pain, so it led to God,
         Seemed the hunger-pang and the poor man's wrong,
         The weak ones trodden beneath the strong.
         Should the worm be chooser?—the clay withstand
         The shaping will of the potter's hand?

         In the Indian fable Arjoon hears
         The scorn of a god rebuke his fears
         "Spare thy pity!" Krishna saith;
         "Not in thy sword is the power of death!
         All is illusion,—loss but seems;
         Pleasure and pain are only dreams;
         Who deems he slayeth doth not kill;
         Who counts as slain is living still.
         Strike, nor fear thy blow is crime;
         Nothing dies but the cheats of time;
         Slain or slayer, small the odds
         To each, immortal as Indra's gods!"

         So by Savannah's banks of shade,
         The stones of his mission the preacher laid
         On the heart of the negro crushed and rent,
         And made of his blood the wall's cement;
         Bade the slave-ship speed from coast to coast,
         Fanned by the wings of the Holy Ghost;
         And begged, for the love of Christ, the gold
         Coined from the hearts in its groaning hold.
         What could it matter, more or less
         Of stripes, and hunger, and weariness?
         Living or dying, bond or free,
         What was time to eternity?

         Alas for the preacher's cherished schemes!
         Mission and church are now but dreams;
         Nor prayer nor fasting availed the plan
         To honor God through the wrong of man.
         Of all his labors no trace remains
         Save the bondman lifting his hands in chains.
         The woof he wove in the righteous warp
         Of freedom-loving Oglethorpe,
         Clothes with curses the goodly land,
         Changes its greenness and bloom to sand;
         And a century's lapse reveals once more
         The slave-ship stealing to Georgia's shore.
         Father of Light! how blind is he
         Who sprinkles the altar he rears to Thee
         With the blood and tears of humanity!

         He erred: shall we count His gifts as naught?
         Was the work of God in him unwrought?
         The servant may through his deafness err,
         And blind may be God's messenger;
         But the Errand is sure they go upon,—
         The word is spoken, the deed is done.
         Was the Hebrew temple less fair and good
         That Solomon bowed to gods of wood?
         For his tempted heart and wandering feet,
         Were the songs of David less pure and sweet?
         So in light and shadow the preacher went,
         God's erring and human instrument;
         And the hearts of the people where he passed
         Swayed as the reeds sway in the blast,
         Under the spell of a voice which took
         In its compass the flow of Siloa's brook,
         And the mystical chime of the bells of gold
         On the ephod's hem of the priest of old,—
         Now the roll of thunder, and now the awe
         Of the trumpet heard in the Mount of Law.

         A solemn fear on the listening crowd
         Fell like the shadow of a cloud.
         The sailor reeling from out the ships
         Whose masts stood thick in the river-slips
         Felt the jest and the curse die on his lips.
         Listened the fisherman rude and hard,
         The calker rough from the builder's yard;
         The man of the market left his load,
         The teamster leaned on his bending goad,
         The maiden, and youth beside her, felt
         Their hearts in a closer union melt,
         And saw the flowers of their love in bloom
         Down the endless vistas of life to come.
         Old age sat feebly brushing away
         From his ears the scanty locks of gray;
         And careless boyhood, living the free
         Unconscious life of bird and tree,
         Suddenly wakened to a sense
         Of sin and its guilty consequence.
         It was as if an angel's voice
         Called the listeners up for their final choice;
         As if a strong hand rent apart
         The veils of sense from soul and heart,
         Showing in light ineffable
         The joys of heaven and woes of hell
         All about in the misty air
         The hills seemed kneeling in silent prayer;
         The rustle of leaves, the moaning sedge,
         The water's lap on its gravelled edge,
         The wailing pines, and, far and faint,
         The wood-dove's note of sad complaint,—
         To the solemn voice of the preacher lent
         An undertone as of low lament;
         And the note of the sea from its sand coast,
         On the easterly wind, now heard, now lost,
         Seemed the murmurous sound of the judgment host.

         Yet wise men doubted, and good men wept,
         As that storm of passion above them swept,
         And, comet-like, adding flame to flame,
         The priests of the new Evangel came,—
         Davenport, flashing upon the crowd,
         Charged like summer's electric cloud,
         Now holding the listener still as death
         With terrible warnings under breath,
         Now shouting for joy, as if he viewed
         The vision of Heaven's beatitude!
         And Celtic Tennant, his long coat bound
         Like a monk's with leathern girdle round,
         Wild with the toss of unshorn hair,
         And wringing of hands, and, eyes aglare,
         Groaning under the world's despair!
         Grave pastors, grieving their flocks to lose,
         Prophesied to the empty pews
         That gourds would wither, and mushrooms die,
         And noisiest fountains run soonest dry,
         Like the spring that gushed in Newbury Street,
         Under the tramp of the earthquake's feet,
         A silver shaft in the air and light,
         For a single day, then lost in night,
         Leaving only, its place to tell,
         Sandy fissure and sulphurous smell.
         With zeal wing-clipped and white-heat cool,
         Moved by the spirit in grooves of rule,
         No longer harried, and cropped, and fleeced,
         Flogged by sheriff and cursed by priest,
         But by wiser counsels left at ease
         To settle quietly on his lees,
         And, self-concentred, to count as done
         The work which his fathers well begun,
         In silent protest of letting alone,
         The Quaker kept the way of his own,—
         A non-conductor among the wires,
         With coat of asbestos proof to fires.
         And quite unable to mend his pace
         To catch the falling manna of grace,
         He hugged the closer his little store
         Of faith, and silently prayed for more.
         And vague of creed and barren of rite,
         But holding, as in his Master's sight,
         Act and thought to the inner light,
         The round of his simple duties walked,
         And strove to live what the others talked.

         And who shall marvel if evil went
         Step by step with the good intent,
         And with love and meekness, side by side,
         Lust of the flesh and spiritual pride?—
         That passionate longings and fancies vain
         Set the heart on fire and crazed the brain?
         That over the holy oracles
         Folly sported with cap and bells?
         That goodly women and learned men
         Marvelling told with tongue and pen
         How unweaned children chirped like birds
         Texts of Scripture and solemn words,
         Like the infant seers of the rocky glens
         In the Puy de Dome of wild Cevennes
         Or baby Lamas who pray and preach
         From Tartir cradles in Buddha's speech?

         In the war which Truth or Freedom wages
         With impious fraud and the wrong of ages,
         Hate and malice and self-love mar
         The notes of triumph with painful jar,
         And the helping angels turn aside
         Their sorrowing faces the shame to bide.
         Never on custom's oiled grooves
         The world to a higher level moves,
         But grates and grinds with friction hard
         On granite boulder and flinty shard.
         The heart must bleed before it feels,
         The pool be troubled before it heals;
         Ever by losses the right must gain,
         Every good have its birth of pain;
         The active Virtues blush to find
         The Vices wearing their badge behind,
         And Graces and Charities feel the fire
         Wherein the sins of the age expire;
         The fiend still rends as of old he rent
         The tortured body from which he went.

         But Time tests all. In the over-drift
         And flow of the Nile, with its annual gift,
         Who cares for the Hadji's relics sunk?
         Who thinks of the drowned-out Coptic monk?
         The tide that loosens the temple's stones,
         And scatters the sacred ibis-bones,
         Drives away from the valley-land
         That Arab robber, the wandering sand,
         Moistens the fields that know no rain,
         Fringes the desert with belts of grain,
         And bread to the sower brings again.
         So the flood of emotion deep and strong
         Troubled the land as it swept along,
         But left a result of holier lives,
         Tenderer-mothers and worthier wives.
         The husband and father whose children fled
         And sad wife wept when his drunken tread
         Frightened peace from his roof-tree's shade,
         And a rock of offence his hearthstone made,
         In a strength that was not his own began
         To rise from the brute's to the plane of man.
         Old friends embraced, long held apart
         By evil counsel and pride of heart;
         And penitence saw through misty tears,
         In the bow of hope on its cloud of fears,
         The promise of Heaven's eternal years,—
         The peace of God for the world's annoy,—
         Beauty for ashes, and oil of joy
         Under the church of Federal Street,
         Under the tread of its Sabbath feet,
         Walled about by its basement stones,
         Lie the marvellous preacher's bones.
         No saintly honors to them are shown,
         No sign nor miracle have they known;
         But he who passes the ancient church
         Stops in the shade of its belfry-porch,
         And ponders the wonderful life of him
         Who lies at rest in that charnel dim.
         Long shall the traveller strain his eye
         From the railroad car, as it plunges by,
         And the vanishing town behind him search
         For the slender spire of the Whitefield Church;
         And feel for one moment the ghosts of trade,
         And fashion, and folly, and pleasure laid,
         By the thought of that life of pure intent,
         That voice of warning yet eloquent,
         Of one on the errands of angels sent.
         And if where he labored the flood of sin
         Like a tide from the harbor-bar sets in,
         And over a life of tune and sense
         The church-spires lift their vain defence,
         As if to scatter the bolts of God
         With the points of Calvin's thunder-rod,—
         Still, as the gem of its civic crown,
         Precious beyond the world's renown,
         His memory hallows the ancient town!

         1859.

## THE TRUCE OF PISCATAQUA.

In the winter of 1675-76, the Eastern Indians, who had been making war upon the New Hampshire settlements, were so reduced in numbers by fighting and famine that they agreed to a peace with Major Waldron at Dover, but the peace was broken in the fall of 1676. The famous chief, Squando, was the principal negotiator on the part of the savages. He had taken up the hatchet to revenge the brutal treatment of his child by drunken white sailors, which caused its death.

It not unfrequently happened during the Border wars that young white children were adopted by their Indian captors, and so kindly treated that they were unwilling to leave the free, wild life of the woods; and in some instances they utterly refused to go back with their parents to their old homes and civilization.

         RAZE these long blocks of brick and stone,
         These huge mill-monsters overgrown;
         Blot out the humbler piles as well,
         Where, moved like living shuttles, dwell
         The weaving genii of the bell;
         Tear from the wild Cocheco's track
         The dams that hold its torrents back;
         And let the loud-rejoicing fall
         Plunge, roaring, down its rocky wall;
         And let the Indian's paddle play
         On the unbridged Piscataqua!
         Wide over hill and valley spread
         Once more the forest, dusk and dread,
         With here and there a clearing cut
         From the walled shadows round it shut;
         Each with its farm-house builded rude,
         By English yeoman squared and hewed,
         And the grim, flankered block-house bound
         With bristling palisades around.
         So, haply shall before thine eyes
         The dusty veil of centuries rise,
         The old, strange scenery overlay
         The tamer pictures of to-day,
         While, like the actors in a play,
         Pass in their ancient guise along
         The figures of my border song
         What time beside Cocheco's flood
         The white man and the red man stood,
         With words of peace and brotherhood;
         When passed the sacred calumet
         From lip to lip with fire-draught wet,
         And, puffed in scorn, the peace-pipe's smoke
         Through the gray beard of Waldron broke,
         And Squando's voice, in suppliant plea
         For mercy, struck the haughty key
         Of one who held, in any fate,
         His native pride inviolate!

         "Let your ears be opened wide!
         He who speaks has never lied.
         Waldron of Piscataqua,
         Hear what Squando has to say!

         "Squando shuts his eyes and sees,
         Far off, Saco's hemlock-trees.
         In his wigwam, still as stone,
         Sits a woman all alone,

         "Wampum beads and birchen strands
         Dropping from her careless hands,
         Listening ever for the fleet
         Patter of a dead child's feet!

         "When the moon a year ago
         Told the flowers the time to blow,
         In that lonely wigwam smiled
         Menewee, our little child.

         "Ere that moon grew thin and old,
         He was lying still and cold;
         Sent before us, weak and small,
         When the Master did not call!

         "On his little grave I lay;
         Three times went and came the day,
         Thrice above me blazed the noon,
         Thrice upon me wept the moon.

         "In the third night-watch I heard,
         Far and low, a spirit-bird;
         Very mournful, very wild,
         Sang the totem of my child.

         "'Menewee, poor Menewee,
         Walks a path he cannot see
         Let the white man's wigwam light
         With its blaze his steps aright.

         "'All-uncalled, he dares not show
         Empty hands to Manito
         Better gifts he cannot bear
         Than the scalps his slayers wear.'

         "All the while the totem sang,
         Lightning blazed and thunder rang;
         And a black cloud, reaching high,
         Pulled the white moon from the sky.

         "I, the medicine-man, whose ear
         All that spirits bear can hear,—
         I, whose eyes are wide to see
         All the things that are to be,—

         "Well I knew the dreadful signs
         In the whispers of the pines,
         In the river roaring loud,
         In the mutter of the cloud.

         "At the breaking of the day,
         From the grave I passed away;
         Flowers bloomed round me, birds sang glad,
         But my heart was hot and mad.

         "There is rust on Squando's knife,
         From the warm, red springs of life;
         On the funeral hemlock-trees
         Many a scalp the totem sees.

         "Blood for blood! But evermore
         Squando's heart is sad and sore;
         And his poor squaw waits at home
         For the feet that never come!

         "Waldron of Cocheco, hear!
         Squando speaks, who laughs at fear;
         Take the captives he has ta'en;
         Let the land have peace again!"

         As the words died on his tongue,
         Wide apart his warriors swung;
         Parted, at the sign he gave,
         Right and left, like Egypt's wave.

         And, like Israel passing free
         Through the prophet-charmed sea,
         Captive mother, wife, and child
         Through the dusky terror filed.

         One alone, a little maid,
         Middleway her steps delayed,
         Glancing, with quick, troubled sight,
         Round about from red to white.

         Then his hand the Indian laid
         On the little maiden's head,
         Lightly from her forehead fair
         Smoothing back her yellow hair.

         "Gift or favor ask I none;
         What I have is all my own
         Never yet the birds have sung,
         Squando hath a beggar's tongue.'

         "Yet for her who waits at home,
         For the dead who cannot come,
         Let the little Gold-hair be
         In the place of Menewee!

         "Mishanock, my little star!
         Come to Saco's pines afar;
         Where the sad one waits at home,
         Wequashim, my moonlight, come!"

         "What!" quoth Waldron, "leave a child
         Christian-born to heathens wild?
         As God lives, from Satan's hand
         I will pluck her as a brand!"

         "Hear me, white man!" Squando cried;
         "Let the little one decide.
         Wequashim, my moonlight, say,
         Wilt thou go with me, or stay?"

         Slowly, sadly, half afraid,
         Half regretfully, the maid
         Owned the ties of blood and race,—
         Turned from Squando's pleading face.

         Not a word the Indian spoke,
         But his wampum chain he broke,
         And the beaded wonder hung
         On that neck so fair and young.

         Silence-shod, as phantoms seem
         In the marches of a dream,
         Single-filed, the grim array
         Through the pine-trees wound away.

         Doubting, trembling, sore amazed,
         Through her tears the young child gazed.
         "God preserve her!" Waldron said;
         "Satan hath bewitched the maid!"

         Years went and came. At close of day
         Singing came a child from play,
         Tossing from her loose-locked head
         Gold in sunshine, brown in shade.

         Pride was in the mother's look,
         But her head she gravely shook,
         And with lips that fondly smiled
         Feigned to chide her truant child.

         Unabashed, the maid began
         "Up and down the brook I ran,
         Where, beneath the bank so steep,
         Lie the spotted trout asleep.

         "'Chip!' went squirrel on the wall,
         After me I heard him call,
         And the cat-bird on the tree
         Tried his best to mimic me.

         "Where the hemlocks grew so dark
         That I stopped to look and hark,
         On a log, with feather-hat,
         By the path, an Indian sat.

         "Then I cried, and ran away;
         But he called, and bade me stay;
         And his voice was good and mild
         As my mother's to her child.

         "And he took my wampum chain,
         Looked and looked it o'er again;
         Gave me berries, and, beside,
         On my neck a plaything tied."

         Straight the mother stooped to see
         What the Indian's gift might be.
         On the braid of wampum hung,
         Lo! a cross of silver swung.

         Well she knew its graven sign,
         Squando's bird and totem pine;
         And, a mirage of the brain,
         Flowed her childhood back again.

         Flashed the roof the sunshine through,
         Into space the walls outgrew;
         On the Indian's wigwam-mat,
         Blossom-crowned, again she sat.

         Cool she felt the west-wind blow,
         In her ear the pines sang low,
         And, like links from out a chain,
         Dropped the years of care and pain.
         From the outward toil and din,
         From the griefs that gnaw within,
         To the freedom of the woods
         Called the birds, and winds, and floods.

         Well, O painful minister!
         Watch thy flock, but blame not her,
         If her ear grew sharp to hear
         All their voices whispering near.

         Blame her not, as to her soul
         All the desert's glamour stole,
         That a tear for childhood's loss
         Dropped upon the Indian's cross.

         When, that night, the Book was read,
         And she bowed her widowed head,
         And a prayer for each loved name
         Rose like incense from a flame,

         With a hope the creeds forbid
         In her pitying bosom hid,
         To the listening ear of Heaven
         Lo! the Indian's name was given.

         1860.

## MY PLAYMATE.

         THE pines were dark on Ramoth hill,
         Their song was soft and low;
         The blossoms in the sweet May wind
         Were falling like the snow.

         The blossoms drifted at our feet,
         The orchard birds sang clear;
         The sweetest and the saddest day
         It seemed of all the year.

         For, more to me than birds or flowers,
         My playmate left her home,
         And took with her the laughing spring,
         The music and the bloom.

         She kissed the lips of kith and kin,
         She laid her hand in mine
         What more could ask the bashful boy
         Who fed her father's kine?

         She left us in the bloom of May
         The constant years told o'er
         Their seasons with as sweet May morns,
         But she came back no more.

         I walk, with noiseless feet, the round
         Of uneventful years;
         Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring
         And reap the autumn ears.

         She lives where all the golden year
         Her summer roses blow;
         The dusky children of the sun
         Before her come and go.

         There haply with her jewelled hands
         She smooths her silken gown,—
         No more the homespun lap wherein
         I shook the walnuts down.

         The wild grapes wait us by the brook,
         The brown nuts on the hill,
         And still the May-day flowers make sweet
         The woods of Follymill.

         The lilies blossom in the pond,
         The bird builds in the tree,
         The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill
         The slow song of the sea.

         I wonder if she thinks of them,
         And how the old time seems,—
         If ever the pines of Ramoth wood
         Are sounding in her dreams.

         I see her face, I hear her voice;
         Does she remember mine?
         And what to her is now the boy
         Who fed her father's kine?

         What cares she that the orioles build
         For other eyes than ours,—
         That other hands with nuts are filled,
         And other laps with flowers?

         O playmate in the golden time!
         Our mossy seat is green,
         Its fringing violets blossom yet,
         The old trees o'er it lean.

         The winds so sweet with birch and fern
         A sweeter memory blow;
         And there in spring the veeries sing
         The song of long ago.

         And still the pines of Ramoth wood
         Are moaning like the sea,—

         The moaning of the sea of change
         Between myself and thee!

         1860.

## COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION.

This ballad was written on the occasion of a Horticultural Festival. Cobbler Keezar was a noted character among the first settlers in the valley of the Merrimac.

         THE beaver cut his timber
         With patient teeth that day,
         The minks were fish-wards, and the crows
         Surveyors of highway,—

         When Keezar sat on the hillside
         Upon his cobbler's form,
         With a pan of coals on either hand
         To keep his waxed-ends warm.

         And there, in the golden weather,
         He stitched and hammered and sung;
         In the brook he moistened his leather,
         In the pewter mug his tongue.

         Well knew the tough old Teuton
         Who brewed the stoutest ale,
         And he paid the goodwife's reckoning
         In the coin of song and tale.

         The songs they still are singing
         Who dress the hills of vine,
         The tales that haunt the Brocken
         And whisper down the Rhine.

         Woodsy and wild and lonesome,
         The swift stream wound away,
         Through birches and scarlet maples
         Flashing in foam and spray,—

         Down on the sharp-horned ledges
         Plunging in steep cascade,
         Tossing its white-maned waters
         Against the hemlock's shade.

         Woodsy and wild and lonesome,
         East and west and north and south;
         Only the village of fishers
         Down at the river's mouth;

         Only here and there a clearing,
         With its farm-house rude and new,
         And tree-stumps, swart as Indians,
         Where the scanty harvest grew.

         No shout of home-bound reapers,
         No vintage-song he heard,
         And on the green no dancing feet
         The merry violin stirred.

         "Why should folk be glum," said Keezar,
         "When Nature herself is glad,
         And the painted woods are laughing
         At the faces so sour and sad?"

         Small heed had the careless cobbler
         What sorrow of heart was theirs
         Who travailed in pain with the births of God,
         And planted a state with prayers,—

         Hunting of witches and warlocks,
         Smiting the heathen horde,—
         One hand on the mason's trowel,
         And one on the soldier's sword.

         But give him his ale and cider,
         Give him his pipe and song,
         Little he cared for Church or State,
         Or the balance of right and wrong.

         "T is work, work, work," he muttered,—
         "And for rest a snuffle of psalms!"
         He smote on his leathern apron
         With his brown and waxen palms.

         "Oh for the purple harvests
         Of the days when I was young
         For the merry grape-stained maidens,
         And the pleasant songs they sung!

         "Oh for the breath of vineyards,
         Of apples and nuts and wine
         For an oar to row and a breeze to blow
         Down the grand old river Rhine!"

         A tear in his blue eye glistened,
         And dropped on his beard so gray.
         "Old, old am I," said Keezar,
         "And the Rhine flows far away!"

         But a cunning man was the cobbler;
         He could call the birds from the trees,
         Charm the black snake out of the ledges,
         And bring back the swarming bees.

         All the virtues of herbs and metals,
         All the lore of the woods, he knew,
         And the arts of the Old World mingle
         With the marvels of the New.

         Well he knew the tricks of magic,
         And the lapstone on his knee
         Had the gift of the Mormon's goggles
         Or the stone of Doctor Dee.(11)

         For the mighty master Agrippa
         Wrought it with spell and rhyme
         From a fragment of mystic moonstone
         In the tower of Nettesheim.

         To a cobbler Minnesinger
         The marvellous stone gave he,—
         And he gave it, in turn, to Keezar,
         Who brought it over the sea.

         He held up that mystic lapstone,
         He held it up like a lens,
         And he counted the long years coming
         Ey twenties and by tens.

         "One hundred years," quoth Keezar,
         "And fifty have I told
         Now open the new before me,
         And shut me out the old!"

         Like a cloud of mist, the blackness
         Rolled from the magic stone,
         And a marvellous picture mingled
         The unknown and the known.

         Still ran the stream to the river,
         And river and ocean joined;
         And there were the bluffs and the blue sea-line,
         And cold north hills behind.

         But—the mighty forest was broken
         By many a steepled town,
         By many a white-walled farm-house,
         And many a garner brown.

         Turning a score of mill-wheels,
         The stream no more ran free;
         White sails on the winding river,
         White sails on the far-off sea.

         Below in the noisy village
         The flags were floating gay,
         And shone on a thousand faces
         The light of a holiday.

         Swiftly the rival ploughmen
         Turned the brown earth from their shares;
         Here were the farmer's treasures,
         There were the craftsman's wares.

         Golden the goodwife's butter,
         Ruby her currant-wine;
         Grand were the strutting turkeys,
         Fat were the beeves and swine.

         Yellow and red were the apples,
         And the ripe pears russet-brown,
         And the peaches had stolen blushes
         From the girls who shook them down.

         And with blooms of hill and wildwood,
         That shame the toil of art,
         Mingled the gorgeous blossoms
         Of the garden's tropic heart.

         "What is it I see?" said Keezar
         "Am I here, or ant I there?
         Is it a fete at Bingen?
         Do I look on Frankfort fair?

         "But where are the clowns and puppets,
         And imps with horns and tail?
         And where are the Rhenish flagons?
         And where is the foaming ale?

         "Strange things, I know, will happen,—
         Strange things the Lord permits;
         But that droughty folk should be jolly
         Puzzles my poor old wits.

         "Here are smiling manly faces,
         And the maiden's step is gay;
         Nor sad by thinking, nor mad by drinking,
         Nor mopes, nor fools, are they.

         "Here's pleasure without regretting,
         And good without abuse,
         The holiday and the bridal
         Of beauty and of use.

         "Here's a priest and there is a Quaker,
         Do the cat and dog agree?
         Have they burned the stocks for ovenwood?
         Have they cut down the gallows-tree?

         "Would the old folk know their children?
         Would they own the graceless town,
         With never a ranter to worry
         And never a witch to drown?"

         Loud laughed the cobbler Keezar,
         Laughed like a school-boy gay;
         Tossing his arms above him,
         The lapstone rolled away.

         It rolled down the rugged hillside,
         It spun like a wheel bewitched,
         It plunged through the leaning willows,
         And into the river pitched.

         There, in the deep, dark water,
         The magic stone lies still,
         Under the leaning willows
         In the shadow of the hill.

         But oft the idle fisher
         Sits on the shadowy bank,
         And his dreams make marvellous pictures
         Where the wizard's lapstone sank.

         And still, in the summer twilights,
         When the river seems to run
         Out from the inner glory,
         Warm with the melted sun,

         The weary mill-girl lingers
         Beside the charmed stream,
         And the sky and the golden water
         Shape and color her dream.

         Air wave the sunset gardens,
         The rosy signals fly;
         Her homestead beckons from the cloud,
         And love goes sailing by.

         1861.

## AMY WENTWORTH

### TO WILLIAM BRADFORD.

         As they who watch by sick-beds find relief
         Unwittingly from the great stress of grief
         And anxious care, in fantasies outwrought
         From the hearth's embers flickering low, or caught
         From whispering wind, or tread of passing feet,
         Or vagrant memory calling up some sweet
         Snatch of old song or romance, whence or why
         They scarcely know or ask,—so, thou and I,
         Nursed in the faith that Truth alone is strong
         In the endurance which outwearies Wrong,
         With meek persistence baffling brutal force,
         And trusting God against the universe,—
         We, doomed to watch a strife we may not share
         With other weapons than the patriot's prayer,
         Yet owning, with full hearts and moistened eyes,
         The awful beauty of self-sacrifice,
         And wrung by keenest sympathy for all
         Who give their loved ones for the living wall
         'Twixt law and treason,—in this evil day
         May haply find, through automatic play
         Of pen and pencil, solace to our pain,
         And hearten others with the strength we gain.
         I know it has been said our times require
         No play of art, nor dalliance with the lyre,
         No weak essay with Fancy's chloroform
         To calm the hot, mad pulses of the storm,
         But the stern war-blast rather, such as sets
         The battle's teeth of serried bayonets,
         And pictures grim as Vernet's. Yet with these
         Some softer tints may blend, and milder keys
         Relieve the storm-stunned ear. Let us keep sweet,
         If so we may, our hearts, even while we eat
         The bitter harvest of our own device
         And half a century's moral cowardice.
         As Nurnberg sang while Wittenberg defied,
         And Kranach painted by his Luther's side,
         And through the war-march of the Puritan
         The silver stream of Marvell's music ran,
         So let the household melodies be sung,
         The pleasant pictures on the wall be hung—
         So let us hold against the hosts of night
         And slavery all our vantage-ground of light.
         Let Treason boast its savagery, and shake
         From its flag-folds its symbol rattlesnake,
         Nurse its fine arts, lay human skins in tan,
         And carve its pipe-bowls from the bones of man,
         And make the tale of Fijian banquets dull
         By drinking whiskey from a loyal skull,—
         But let us guard, till this sad war shall cease,
         (God grant it soon!) the graceful arts of peace
         No foes are conquered who the victors teach
         Their vandal manners and barbaric speech.

         And while, with hearts of thankfulness, we bear
         Of the great common burden our full share,
         Let none upbraid us that the waves entice
         Thy sea-dipped pencil, or some quaint device,
         Rhythmic, and sweet, beguiles my pen away
         From the sharp strifes and sorrows of to-day.
         Thus, while the east-wind keen from Labrador
         Sings it the leafless elms, and from the shore
         Of the great sea comes the monotonous roar
         Of the long-breaking surf, and all the sky
         Is gray with cloud, home-bound and dull, I try
         To time a simple legend to the sounds
         Of winds in the woods, and waves on pebbled bounds,—
         A song for oars to chime with, such as might
         Be sung by tired sea-painters, who at night
         Look from their hemlock camps, by quiet cove
         Or beach, moon-lighted, on the waves they love.
         (So hast thou looked, when level sunset lay
         On the calm bosom of some Eastern bay,
         And all the spray-moist rocks and waves that rolled
         Up the white sand-slopes flashed with ruddy gold.)
         Something it has—a flavor of the sea,
         And the sea's freedom—which reminds of thee.
         Its faded picture, dimly smiling down
         From the blurred fresco of the ancient town,
         I have not touched with warmer tints in vain,
         If, in this dark, sad year, it steals one thought
         from pain.

                  . . . . . . . . . . . .

         Her fingers shame the ivory keys
         They dance so light along;
         The bloom upon her parted lips
         Is sweeter than the song.

         O perfumed suitor, spare thy smiles!
         Her thoughts are not of thee;
         She better loves the salted wind,
         The voices of the sea.

         Her heart is like an outbound ship
         That at its anchor swings;
         The murmur of the stranded shell
         Is in the song she sings.

         She sings, and, smiling, hears her praise,
         But dreams the while of one
         Who watches from his sea-blown deck
         The icebergs in the sun.

         She questions all the winds that blow,
         And every fog-wreath dim,
         And bids the sea-birds flying north
         Bear messages to him.

         She speeds them with the thanks of men
         He perilled life to save,
         And grateful prayers like holy oil
         To smooth for him the wave.

         Brown Viking of the fishing-smack!
         Fair toast of all the town!—
         The skipper's jerkin ill beseems
         The lady's silken gown!

         But ne'er shall Amy Wentworth wear
         For him the blush of shame
         Who dares to set his manly gifts
         Against her ancient name.

         The stream is brightest at its spring,
         And blood is not like wine;
         Nor honored less than he who heirs
         Is he who founds a line.

         Full lightly shall the prize be won,
         If love be Fortune's spur;
         And never maiden stoops to him
         Who lifts himself to her.

         Her home is brave in Jaffrey Street,
         With stately stairways worn
         By feet of old Colonial knights
         And ladies gentle-born.

         Still green about its ample porch
         The English ivy twines,
         Trained back to show in English oak
         The herald's carven signs.

         And on her, from the wainscot old,
         Ancestral faces frown,—
         And this has worn the soldier's sword,
         And that the judge's gown.

         But, strong of will and proud as they,
         She walks the gallery floor
         As if she trod her sailor's deck
         By stormy Labrador.

         The sweetbrier blooms on Kittery-side,
         And green are Elliot's bowers;
         Her garden is the pebbled beach,
         The mosses are her flowers.

         She looks across the harbor-bar
         To see the white gulls fly;
         His greeting from the Northern sea
         Is in their clanging cry.

         She hums a song, and dreams that he,
         As in its romance old,
         Shall homeward ride with silken sails
         And masts of beaten gold!

         Oh, rank is good, and gold is fair,
         And high and low mate ill;
         But love has never known a law
         Beyond its own sweet will!

         1862.

## THE COUNTESS.

### TO E. W.

I inscribed this poem to Dr. Elias Weld of Haverhill, Massachusetts, to whose kindness I was much indebted in my boyhood. He was the one cultivated man in the neighborhood. His small but well-chosen library was placed at my disposal. He is the "wise old doctor" of Snow-Bound. Count Francois de Vipart with his cousin Joseph Rochemont de Poyen came to the United States in the early part of the present century. They took up their residence at Rocks Village on the Merrimac, where they both married. The wife of Count Vipart was Mary Ingalls, who as my father remembered her was a very lovely young girl. Her wedding dress, as described by a lady still living, was "pink satin with an overdress of white lace, and white satin slippers." She died in less than a year after her marriage. Her husband returned to his native country. He lies buried in the family tomb of the Viparts at Bordeaux.

         I KNOW not, Time and Space so intervene,
         Whether, still waiting with a trust serene,
         Thou bearest up thy fourscore years and ten,
         Or, called at last, art now Heaven's citizen;
         But, here or there, a pleasant thought of thee,
         Like an old friend, all day has been with me.
         The shy, still boy, for whom thy kindly hand
         Smoothed his hard pathway to the wonder-land
         Of thought and fancy, in gray manhood yet
         Keeps green the memory of his early debt.
         To-day, when truth and falsehood speak their words
         Through hot-lipped cannon and the teeth of swords,
         Listening with quickened heart and ear intent
         To each sharp clause of that stern argument,
         I still can hear at times a softer note
         Of the old pastoral music round me float,
         While through the hot gleam of our civil strife
         Looms the green mirage of a simpler life.
         As, at his alien post, the sentinel
         Drops the old bucket in the homestead well,
         And hears old voices in the winds that toss
         Above his head the live-oak's beard of moss,
         So, in our trial-time, and under skies
         Shadowed by swords like Islam's paradise,
         I wait and watch, and let my fancy stray
         To milder scenes and youth's Arcadian day;
         And howsoe'er the pencil dipped in dreams
         Shades the brown woods or tints the sunset streams,
         The country doctor in the foreground seems,
         Whose ancient sulky down the village lanes
         Dragged, like a war-car, captive ills and pains.
         I could not paint the scenery of my song,
         Mindless of one who looked thereon so long;
         Who, night and day, on duty's lonely round,
         Made friends o' the woods and rocks, and knew the sound
         Of each small brook, and what the hillside trees
         Said to the winds that touched their leafy keys;
         Who saw so keenly and so well could paint
         The village-folk, with all their humors quaint,
         The parson ambling on his wall-eyed roan.
         Grave and erect, with white hair backward blown;
         The tough old boatman, half amphibious grown;
         The muttering witch-wife of the gossip's tale,
         And the loud straggler levying his blackmail,—
         Old customs, habits, superstitions, fears,
         All that lies buried under fifty years.
         To thee, as is most fit, I bring my lay,
         And, grateful, own the debt I cannot pay.

                  . . . . . . . . . .

         Over the wooded northern ridge,
         Between its houses brown,
         To the dark tunnel of the bridge
         The street comes straggling down.

         You catch a glimpse, through birch and pine,
         Of gable, roof, and porch,
         The tavern with its swinging sign,
         The sharp horn of the church.

         The river's steel-blue crescent curves
         To meet, in ebb and flow,
         The single broken wharf that serves
         For sloop and gundelow.

         With salt sea-scents along its shores
         The heavy hay-boats crawl,
         The long antennae of their oars
         In lazy rise and fall.

         Along the gray abutment's wall
         The idle shad-net dries;
         The toll-man in his cobbler's stall
         Sits smoking with closed eyes.

         You hear the pier's low undertone
         Of waves that chafe and gnaw;
         You start,—a skipper's horn is blown
         To raise the creaking draw.

         At times a blacksmith's anvil sounds
         With slow and sluggard beat,
         Or stage-coach on its dusty rounds
         Fakes up the staring street.

         A place for idle eyes and ears,
         A cobwebbed nook of dreams;
         Left by the stream whose waves are years
         The stranded village seems.

         And there, like other moss and rust,
         The native dweller clings,
         And keeps, in uninquiring trust,
         The old, dull round of things.

         The fisher drops his patient lines,
         The farmer sows his grain,
         Content to hear the murmuring pines
         Instead of railroad-train.

         Go where, along the tangled steep
         That slopes against the west,
         The hamlet's buried idlers sleep
         In still profounder rest.

         Throw back the locust's flowery plume,
         The birch's pale-green scarf,
         And break the web of brier and bloom
         From name and epitaph.

         A simple muster-roll of death,
         Of pomp and romance shorn,
         The dry, old names that common breath
         Has cheapened and outworn.

         Yet pause by one low mound, and part
         The wild vines o'er it laced,
         And read the words by rustic art
         Upon its headstone traced.

         Haply yon white-haired villager
         Of fourscore years can say
         What means the noble name of her
         Who sleeps with common clay.

         An exile from the Gascon land
         Found refuge here and rest,
         And loved, of all the village band,
         Its fairest and its best.

         He knelt with her on Sabbath morns,
         He worshipped through her eyes,
         And on the pride that doubts and scorns
         Stole in her faith's surprise.

         Her simple daily life he saw
         By homeliest duties tried,
         In all things by an untaught law
         Of fitness justified.

         For her his rank aside he laid;
         He took the hue and tone
         Of lowly life and toil, and made
         Her simple ways his own.

         Yet still, in gay and careless ease,
         To harvest-field or dance
         He brought the gentle courtesies,
         The nameless grace of France.

         And she who taught him love not less
         From him she loved in turn
         Caught in her sweet unconsciousness
         What love is quick to learn.

         Each grew to each in pleased accord,
         Nor knew the gazing town
         If she looked upward to her lord
         Or he to her looked down.

         How sweet, when summer's day was o'er,
         His violin's mirth and wail,
         The walk on pleasant Newbury's shore,
         The river's moonlit sail!

         Ah! life is brief, though love be long;
         The altar and the bier,
         The burial hymn and bridal song,
         Were both in one short year!

         Her rest is quiet on the hill,
         Beneath the locust's bloom
         Far off her lover sleeps as still
         Within his scutcheoned tomb.

         The Gascon lord, the village maid,
         In death still clasp their hands;
         The love that levels rank and grade
         Unites their severed lands.

         What matter whose the hillside grave,
         Or whose the blazoned stone?
         Forever to her western wave
         Shall whisper blue Garonne!

         O Love!—so hallowing every soil
         That gives thy sweet flower room,
         Wherever, nursed by ease or toil,
         The human heart takes bloom!—

         Plant of lost Eden, from the sod
         Of sinful earth unriven,
         White blossom of the trees of God
         Dropped down to us from heaven!

         This tangled waste of mound and stone
         Is holy for thy sale;
         A sweetness which is all thy own
         Breathes out from fern and brake.

         And while ancestral pride shall twine
         The Gascon's tomb with flowers,
         Fall sweetly here, O song of mine,
         With summer's bloom and showers!

         And let the lines that severed seem
         Unite again in thee,
         As western wave and Gallic stream
         Are mingled in one sea!

         1863.

## AMONG THE HILLS

This poem, when originally published, was dedicated to Annie Fields, wife of the distinguished publisher, James T. Fields, of Boston, in grateful acknowledgment of the strength and inspiration I have found in her friendship and sympathy. The poem in its first form was entitled The Wife: an Idyl of Bearcamp Water, and appeared in The Atlantic Monthly for January, 1868. When I published the volume Among the Hills, in December of the same year, I expanded the Prelude and filled out also the outlines of the story.

         PRELUDE.

         ALONG the roadside, like the flowers of gold
         That tawny Incas for their gardens wrought,
         Heavy with sunshine droops the golden-rod,
         And the red pennons of the cardinal-flowers
         Hang motionless upon their upright staves.
         The sky is hot and hazy, and the wind,
         Vying-weary with its long flight from the south,
         Unfelt; yet, closely scanned, yon maple leaf
         With faintest motion, as one stirs in dreams,
         Confesses it. The locust by the wall
         Stabs the noon-silence with his sharp alarm.
         A single hay-cart down the dusty road
         Creaks slowly, with its driver fast asleep
         On the load's top. Against the neighboring hill,
         Huddled along the stone wall's shady side,
         The sheep show white, as if a snowdrift still
         Defied the dog-star. Through the open door
         A drowsy smell of flowers-gray heliotrope,
         And white sweet clover, and shy mignonette—
         Comes faintly in, and silent chorus lends
         To the pervading symphony of peace.
         No time is this for hands long over-worn
         To task their strength; and (unto Him be praise
         Who giveth quietness!) the stress and strain
         Of years that did the work of centuries
         Have ceased, and we can draw our breath once more
         Freely and full. So, as yon harvesters
         Make glad their nooning underneath the elms
         With tale and riddle and old snatch of song,
         I lay aside grave themes, and idly turn
         The leaves of memory's sketch-book, dreaming o'er
         Old summer pictures of the quiet hills,
         And human life, as quiet, at their feet.

         And yet not idly all. A farmer's son,
         Proud of field-lore and harvest craft, and feeling
         All their fine possibilities, how rich
         And restful even poverty and toil
         Become when beauty, harmony, and love
         Sit at their humble hearth as angels sat
         At evening in the patriarch's tent, when man
         Makes labor noble, and his farmer's frock
         The symbol of a Christian chivalry
         Tender and just and generous to her
         Who clothes with grace all duty; still, I know
         Too well the picture has another side,—
         How wearily the grind of toil goes on
         Where love is wanting, how the eye and ear
         And heart are starved amidst the plenitude
         Of nature, and how hard and colorless
         Is life without an atmosphere. I look
         Across the lapse of half a century,
         And call to mind old homesteads, where no flower
         Told that the spring had come, but evil weeds,
         Nightshade and rough-leaved burdock in the place
         Of the sweet doorway greeting of the rose
         And honeysuckle, where the house walls seemed
         Blistering in sun, without a tree or vine
         To cast the tremulous shadow of its leaves
         Across the curtainless windows, from whose panes
         Fluttered the signal rags of shiftlessness.
         Within, the cluttered kitchen-floor, unwashed
         (Broom-clean I think they called it); the best room
         Stifling with cellar damp, shut from the air
         In hot midsummer, bookless, pictureless,
         Save the inevitable sampler hung
         Over the fireplace, or a mourning piece,
         A green-haired woman, peony-cheeked, beneath
         Impossible willows; the wide-throated hearth
         Bristling with faded pine-boughs half concealing
         The piled-up rubbish at the chimney's back;
         And, in sad keeping with all things about them,
         Shrill, querulous-women, sour and sullen men,
         Untidy, loveless, old before their time,
         With scarce a human interest save their own
         Monotonous round of small economies,
         Or the poor scandal of the neighborhood;
         Blind to the beauty everywhere revealed,
         Treading the May-flowers with regardless feet;
         For them the song-sparrow and the bobolink
         Sang not, nor winds made music in the leaves;
         For them in vain October's holocaust
         Burned, gold and crimson, over all the hills,
         The sacramental mystery of the woods.
         Church-goers, fearful of the unseen Powers,
         But grumbling over pulpit-tax and pew-rent,
         Saving, as shrewd economists, their souls
         And winter pork with the least possible outlay
         Of salt and sanctity; in daily life
         Showing as little actual comprehension
         Of Christian charity and love and duty,
         As if the Sermon on the Mount had been
         Outdated like a last year's almanac
         Rich in broad woodlands and in half-tilled fields,
         And yet so pinched and bare and comfortless,
         The veriest straggler limping on his rounds,
         The sun and air his sole inheritance,
         Laughed at a poverty that paid its taxes,
         And hugged his rags in self-complacency!

         Not such should be the homesteads of a land
         Where whoso wisely wills and acts may dwell
         As king and lawgiver, in broad-acred state,
         With beauty, art, taste, culture, books, to make
         His hour of leisure richer than a life
         Of fourscore to the barons of old time,
         Our yeoman should be equal to his home
         Set in the fair, green valleys, purple walled,
         A man to match his mountains, not to creep
         Dwarfed and abased below them. I would fain
         In this light way (of which I needs must own
         With the knife-grinder of whom Canning sings,
         "Story, God bless you! I have none to tell you!")
         Invite the eye to see and heart to feel
         The beauty and the joy within their reach,—
         Home, and home loves, and the beatitudes
         Of nature free to all. Haply in years
         That wait to take the places of our own,
         Heard where some breezy balcony looks down
         On happy homes, or where the lake in the moon
         Sleeps dreaming of the mountains, fair as Ruth,
         In the old Hebrew pastoral, at the feet
         Of Boaz, even this simple lay of mine
         May seem the burden of a prophecy,
         Finding its late fulfilment in a change
         Slow as the oak's growth, lifting manhood up
         Through broader culture, finer manners, love,
         And reverence, to the level of the hills.

         O Golden Age, whose light is of the dawn,
         And not of sunset, forward, not behind,
         Flood the new heavens and earth, and with thee bring
         All the old virtues, whatsoever things
         Are pure and honest and of good repute,
         But add thereto whatever bard has sung
         Or seer has told of when in trance and dream
         They saw the Happy Isles of prophecy
         Let Justice hold her scale, and Truth divide
         Between the right and wrong; but give the heart
         The freedom of its fair inheritance;
         Let the poor prisoner, cramped and starved so long,
         At Nature's table feast his ear and eye
         With joy and wonder; let all harmonies
         Of sound, form, color, motion, wait upon
         The princely guest, whether in soft attire
         Of leisure clad, or the coarse frock of toil,
         And, lending life to the dead form of faith,
         Give human nature reverence for the sake
         Of One who bore it, making it divine
         With the ineffable tenderness of God;
         Let common need, the brotherhood of prayer,
         The heirship of an unknown destiny,
         The unsolved mystery round about us, make
         A man more precious than the gold of Ophir.
         Sacred, inviolate, unto whom all things
         Should minister, as outward types and signs
         Of the eternal beauty which fulfils
         The one great purpose of creation, Love,
         The sole necessity of Earth and Heaven!

                  . . . . . . . . . . .

         For weeks the clouds had raked the hills
         And vexed the vales with raining,
         And all the woods were sad with mist,
         And all the brooks complaining.

         At last, a sudden night-storm tore
         The mountain veils asunder,
         And swept the valleys clean before
         The besom of the thunder.

         Through Sandwich notch the west-wind sang
         Good morrow to the cotter;
         And once again Chocorua's horn
         Of shadow pierced the water.

         Above his broad lake Ossipee,
         Once more the sunshine wearing,
         Stooped, tracing on that silver shield
         His grim armorial bearing.

         Clear drawn against the hard blue sky,
         The peaks had winter's keenness;
         And, close on autumn's frost, the vales
         Had more than June's fresh greenness.

         Again the sodden forest floors
         With golden lights were checkered,
         Once more rejoicing leaves in wind
         And sunshine danced and flickered.

         It was as if the summer's late
         Atoning for it's sadness
         Had borrowed every season's charm
         To end its days in gladness.

         Rivers of gold-mist flowing down
         From far celestial fountains,—
         The great sun flaming through the rifts
         Beyond the wall of mountains.

         We paused at last where home-bound cows
         Brought down the pasture's treasure,
         And in the barn the rhythmic flails
         Beat out a harvest measure.

         We heard the night-hawk's sullen plunge,
         The crow his tree-mates calling
         The shadows lengthening down the slopes
         About our feet were falling.

         And through them smote the level sun
         In broken lines of splendor,
         Touched the gray rocks and made the green
         Of the shorn grass more tender.

         The maples bending o'er the gate,
         Their arch of leaves just tinted
         With yellow warmth, the golden glow
         Of coming autumn hinted.

         Keen white between the farm-house showed,
         And smiled on porch and trellis,
         The fair democracy of flowers
         That equals cot and palace.

         And weaving garlands for her dog,
         'Twixt chidings and caresses,
         A human flower of childhood shook
         The sunshine from her tresses.

         Clear drawn against the hard blue sky,
         The peaks had winter's keenness;
         And, close on autumn's frost, the vales
         Had more than June's fresh greenness.

         Again the sodden forest floors
         With golden lights were checkered,
         Once more rejoicing leaves in wind
         And sunshine danced and flickered.

         It was as if the summer's late
         Atoning for it's sadness
         Had borrowed every season's charm
         To end its days in gladness.

         I call to mind those banded vales
         Of shadow and of shining,
         Through which, my hostess at my side,
         I drove in day's declining.

         We held our sideling way above
         The river's whitening shallows,
         By homesteads old, with wide-flung barns
         Swept through and through by swallows;

         By maple orchards, belts of pine
         And larches climbing darkly
         The mountain slopes, and, over all,
         The great peaks rising starkly.

         You should have seen that long hill-range
         With gaps of brightness riven,—
         How through each pass and hollow streamed
         The purpling lights of heaven,—

         On either hand we saw the signs
         Of fancy and of shrewdness,
         Where taste had wound its arms of vines
         Round thrift's uncomely rudeness.

         The sun-brown farmer in his frock
         Shook hands, and called to Mary
         Bare-armed, as Juno might, she came,
         White-aproned from her dairy.

         Her air, her smile, her motions, told
         Of womanly completeness;
         A music as of household songs
         Was in her voice of sweetness.

         Not fair alone in curve and line,
         But something more and better,
         The secret charm eluding art,
         Its spirit, not its letter;—

         An inborn grace that nothing lacked
         Of culture or appliance,
         The warmth of genial courtesy,
         The calm of self-reliance.

         Before her queenly womanhood
         How dared our hostess utter
         The paltry errand of her need
         To buy her fresh-churned butter?

         She led the way with housewife pride,
         Her goodly store disclosing,
         Full tenderly the golden balls
         With practised hands disposing.

         Then, while along the western hills
         We watched the changeful glory
         Of sunset, on our homeward way,
         I heard her simple story.

         The early crickets sang; the stream
         Plashed through my friend's narration
         Her rustic patois of the hills
         Lost in my free-translation.

         "More wise," she said, "than those who swarm
         Our hills in middle summer,
         She came, when June's first roses blow,
         To greet the early comer.

         "From school and ball and rout she came,
         The city's fair, pale daughter,
         To drink the wine of mountain air
         Beside the Bearcamp Water.

         "Her step grew firmer on the hills
         That watch our homesteads over;
         On cheek and lip, from summer fields,
         She caught the bloom of clover.

         "For health comes sparkling in the streams
         From cool Chocorua stealing
         There's iron in our Northern winds;
         Our pines are trees of healing.

         "She sat beneath the broad-armed elms
         That skirt the mowing-meadow,
         And watched the gentle west-wind weave
         The grass with shine and shadow.

         "Beside her, from the summer heat
         To share her grateful screening,
         With forehead bared, the farmer stood,
         Upon his pitchfork leaning.

         "Framed in its damp, dark locks, his face
         Had nothing mean or common,—
         Strong, manly, true, the tenderness
         And pride beloved of woman.

         "She looked up, glowing with the health
         The country air had brought her,
         And, laughing, said: 'You lack a wife,
         Your mother lacks a daughter.

         "'To mend your frock and bake your bread
         You do not need a lady
         Be sure among these brown old homes
         Is some one waiting ready,—

         "'Some fair, sweet girl with skilful hand
         And cheerful heart for treasure,
         Who never played with ivory keys,
         Or danced the polka's measure.'

         "He bent his black brows to a frown,
         He set his white teeth tightly.
         ''T is well,' he said, 'for one like you
         To choose for me so lightly.

         "You think, because my life is rude
         I take no note of sweetness
         I tell you love has naught to do
         With meetness or unmeetness.

         "'Itself its best excuse, it asks
         No leave of pride or fashion
         When silken zone or homespun frock
         It stirs with throbs of passion.

         "'You think me deaf and blind: you bring
         Your winning graces hither
         As free as if from cradle-time
         We two had played together.

         "'You tempt me with your laughing eyes,
         Your cheek of sundown's blushes,
         A motion as of waving grain,
         A music as of thrushes.

         "'The plaything of your summer sport,
         The spells you weave around me
         You cannot at your will undo,
         Nor leave me as you found me.

         "'You go as lightly as you came,
         Your life is well without me;
         What care you that these hills will close
         Like prison-walls about me?

         "'No mood is mine to seek a wife,
         Or daughter for my mother
         Who loves you loses in that love
         All power to love another!

         "'I dare your pity or your scorn,
         With pride your own exceeding;
         I fling my heart into your lap
         Without a word of pleading.'

         "She looked up in his face of pain
         So archly, yet so tender
         'And if I lend you mine,' she said,
         'Will you forgive the lender?

         "'Nor frock nor tan can hide the man;
         And see you not, my farmer,
         How weak and fond a woman waits
         Behind this silken armor?

         "'I love you: on that love alone,
         And not my worth, presuming,
         Will you not trust for summer fruit
         The tree in May-day blooming?'

         "Alone the hangbird overhead,
         His hair-swung cradle straining,
         Looked down to see love's miracle,—
         The giving that is gaining.

         "And so the farmer found a wife,
         His mother found a daughter
         There looks no happier home than hers
         On pleasant Bearcamp Water.

         "Flowers spring to blossom where she walks
         The careful ways of duty;
         Our hard, stiff lines of life with her
         Are flowing curves of beauty.

         "Our homes are cheerier for her sake,
         Our door-yards brighter blooming,
         And all about the social air
         Is sweeter for her coming.

         "Unspoken homilies of peace
         Her daily life is preaching;
         The still refreshment of the dew
         Is her unconscious teaching.

         "And never tenderer hand than hers
         Unknits the brow of ailing;
         Her garments to the sick man's ear
         Have music in their trailing.

         "And when, in pleasant harvest moons,
         The youthful huskers gather,
         Or sleigh-drives on the mountain ways
         Defy the winter weather,—

         "In sugar-camps, when south and warm
         The winds of March are blowing,
         And sweetly from its thawing veins
         The maple's blood is flowing,—

         "In summer, where some lilied pond
         Its virgin zone is baring,
         Or where the ruddy autumn fire
         Lights up the apple-paring,—

         "The coarseness of a ruder time
         Her finer mirth displaces,
         A subtler sense of pleasure fills
         Each rustic sport she graces.

         "Her presence lends its warmth and health
         To all who come before it.
         If woman lost us Eden, such
         As she alone restore it.

         "For larger life and wiser aims
         The farmer is her debtor;
         Who holds to his another's heart
         Must needs be worse or better.

         "Through her his civic service shows
         A purer-toned ambition;
         No double consciousness divides
         The man and politician.

         "In party's doubtful ways he trusts
         Her instincts to determine;
         At the loud polls, the thought of her
         Recalls Christ's Mountain Sermon.

         "He owns her logic of the heart,
         And wisdom of unreason,
         Supplying, while he doubts and weighs,
         The needed word in season.

         "He sees with pride her richer thought,
         Her fancy's freer ranges;
         And love thus deepened to respect
         Is proof against all changes.

         "And if she walks at ease in ways
         His feet are slow to travel,
         And if she reads with cultured eyes
         What his may scarce unravel,

         "Still clearer, for her keener sight
         Of beauty and of wonder,
         He learns the meaning of the hills
         He dwelt from childhood under.

         "And higher, warmed with summer lights,
         Or winter-crowned and hoary,
         The ridged horizon lifts for him
         Its inner veils of glory.

         "He has his own free, bookless lore,
         The lessons nature taught him,
         The wisdom which the woods and hills
         And toiling men have brought him:

         "The steady force of will whereby
         Her flexile grace seems sweeter;
         The sturdy counterpoise which makes
         Her woman's life completer.

         "A latent fire of soul which lacks
         No breath of love to fan it;
         And wit, that, like his native brooks,
         Plays over solid granite.

         "How dwarfed against his manliness
         She sees the poor pretension,
         The wants, the aims, the follies, born
         Of fashion and convention.

         "How life behind its accidents
         Stands strong and self-sustaining,
         The human fact transcending all
         The losing and the gaining.

         "And so in grateful interchange
         Of teacher and of hearer,
         Their lives their true distinctness keep
         While daily drawing nearer.

         "And if the husband or the wife
         In home's strong light discovers
         Such slight defaults as failed to meet
         The blinded eyes of lovers,

         "Why need we care to ask?—who dreams
         Without their thorns of roses,
         Or wonders that the truest steel
         The readiest spark discloses?

         "For still in mutual sufferance lies
         The secret of true living;
         Love scarce is love that never knows
         The sweetness of forgiving.

         "We send the Squire to General Court,
         He takes his young wife thither;
         No prouder man election day
         Rides through the sweet June weather.

         "He sees with eyes of manly trust
         All hearts to her inclining;
         Not less for him his household light
         That others share its shining."

         Thus, while my hostess spake, there grew
         Before me, warmer tinted
         And outlined with a tenderer grace,
         The picture that she hinted.

         The sunset smouldered as we drove
         Beneath the deep hill-shadows.
         Below us wreaths of white fog walked
         Like ghosts the haunted meadows.

         Sounding the summer night, the stars
         Dropped down their golden plummets;
         The pale arc of the Northern lights
         Rose o'er the mountain summits,

         Until, at last, beneath its bridge,
         We heard the Bearcamp flowing,
         And saw across the mapled lawn
         The welcome home lights glowing.

         And, musing on the tale I heard,
         'T were well, thought I, if often
         To rugged farm-life came the gift
         To harmonize and soften;

         If more and more we found the troth
         Of fact and fancy plighted,
         And culture's charm and labor's strength
         In rural homes united,—

         The simple life, the homely hearth,
         With beauty's sphere surrounding,
         And blessing toil where toil abounds
         With graces more abounding.

         1868.

## THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL.

         THE land was pale with famine
         And racked with fever-pain;
         The frozen fiords were fishless,
         The earth withheld her grain.

         Men saw the boding Fylgja
         Before them come and go,
         And, through their dreams, the Urdarmoon
         From west to east sailed slow.

         Jarl Thorkell of Thevera
         At Yule-time made his vow;
         On Rykdal's holy Doom-stone
         He slew to Frey his cow.

         To bounteous Frey he slew her;
         To Skuld, the younger Norn,
         Who watches over birth and death,
         He gave her calf unborn.

         And his little gold-haired daughter
         Took up the sprinkling-rod,
         And smeared with blood the temple
         And the wide lips of the god.

         Hoarse below, the winter water
         Ground its ice-blocks o'er and o'er;
         Jets of foam, like ghosts of dead waves,
         Rose and fell along the shore.

         The red torch of the Jokul,
         Aloft in icy space,
         Shone down on the bloody Horg-stones
         And the statue's carven face.

         And closer round and grimmer
         Beneath its baleful light
         The Jotun shapes of mountains
         Came crowding through the night.

         The gray-haired Hersir trembled
         As a flame by wind is blown;
         A weird power moved his white lips,
         And their voice was not his own.

         "The AEsir thirst!" he muttered;
         "The gods must have more blood
         Before the tun shall blossom
         Or fish shall fill the flood.

         "The AEsir thirst and hunger,
         And hence our blight and ban;
         The mouths of the strong gods water
         For the flesh and blood of man!

         "Whom shall we give the strong ones?
         Not warriors, sword on thigh;
         But let the nursling infant
         And bedrid old man die."

         "So be it!" cried the young men,
         "There needs nor doubt nor parle."
         But, knitting hard his red brows,
         In silence stood the Jarl.

         A sound of woman's weeping
         At the temple door was heard,
         But the old men bowed their white heads,
         And answered not a word.

         Then the Dream-wife of Thingvalla,
         A Vala young and fair,
         Sang softly, stirring with her breath
         The veil of her loose hair.

         She sang: "The winds from Alfheim
         Bring never sound of strife;
         The gifts for Frey the meetest
         Are not of death, but life.

         "He loves the grass-green meadows,
         The grazing kine's sweet breath;
         He loathes your bloody Horg-stones,
         Your gifts that smell of death.

         "No wrong by wrong is righted,
         No pain is cured by pain;
         The blood that smokes from Doom-rings
         Falls back in redder rain.

         "The gods are what you make them,
         As earth shall Asgard prove;
         And hate will come of hating,
         And love will come of love.

         "Make dole of skyr and black bread
         That old and young may live;
         And look to Frey for favor
         When first like Frey you give.

         "Even now o'er Njord's sea-meadows
         The summer dawn begins
         The tun shall have its harvest,
         The fiord its glancing fins."

         Then up and swore Jarl Thorkell
         "By Gimli and by Hel,
         O Vala of Thingvalla,
         Thou singest wise and well!

         "Too dear the AEsir's favors
         Bought with our children's lives;
         Better die than shame in living
         Our mothers and our wives.

         "The full shall give his portion
         To him who hath most need;
         Of curdled skyr and black bread,
         Be daily dole decreed."

         He broke from off his neck-chain
         Three links of beaten gold;
         And each man, at his bidding,
         Brought gifts for young and old.

         Then mothers nursed their children,
         And daughters fed their sires,
         And Health sat down with Plenty
         Before the next Yule fires.

         The Horg-stones stand in Rykdal;
         The Doom-ring still remains;
         But the snows of a thousand winters
         Have washed away the stains.

         Christ ruleth now; the Asir
         Have found their twilight dim;
         And, wiser than she dreamed, of old
         The Vala sang of Him

         1868.

## THE TWO RABBINS.

         THE Rabbi Nathan two-score years and ten
         Walked blameless through the evil world, and then,
         Just as the almond blossomed in his hair,
         Met a temptation all too strong to bear,
         And miserably sinned. So, adding not
         Falsehood to guilt, he left his seat, and taught
         No more among the elders, but went out
         From the great congregation girt about
         With sackcloth, and with ashes on his head,
         Making his gray locks grayer. Long he prayed,
         Smiting his breast; then, as the Book he laid
         Open before him for the Bath-Col's choice,
         Pausing to hear that Daughter of a Voice,
         Behold the royal preacher's words: "A friend
         Loveth at all times, yea, unto the end;
         And for the evil day thy brother lives."
         Marvelling, he said: "It is the Lord who gives
         Counsel in need. At Ecbatana dwells
         Rabbi Ben Isaac, who all men excels
         In righteousness and wisdom, as the trees
         Of Lebanon the small weeds that the bees
         Bow with their weight. I will arise, and lay
         My sins before him."

                                 And he went his way
         Barefooted, fasting long, with many prayers;
         But even as one who, followed unawares,
         Suddenly in the darkness feels a hand
         Thrill with its touch his own, and his cheek fanned
         By odors subtly sweet, and whispers near
         Of words he loathes, yet cannot choose but hear,
         So, while the Rabbi journeyed, chanting low
         The wail of David's penitential woe,
         Before him still the old temptation came,
         And mocked him with the motion and the shame
         Of such desires that, shuddering, he abhorred
         Himself; and, crying mightily to the Lord
         To free his soul and cast the demon out,
         Smote with his staff the blankness round about.

         At length, in the low light of a spent day,
         The towers of Ecbatana far away
         Rose on the desert's rim; and Nathan, faint
         And footsore, pausing where for some dead saint
         The faith of Islam reared a domed tomb,
         Saw some one kneeling in the shadow, whom
         He greeted kindly: "May the Holy One
         Answer thy prayers, O stranger!" Whereupon
         The shape stood up with a loud cry, and then,
         Clasped in each other's arms, the two gray men
         Wept, praising Him whose gracious providence
         Made their paths one. But straightway, as the sense
         Of his transgression smote him, Nathan tore
         Himself away: "O friend beloved, no more
         Worthy am I to touch thee, for I came,
         Foul from my sins, to tell thee all my shame.
         Haply thy prayers, since naught availeth mine,
         May purge my soul, and make it white like thine.
         Pity me, O Ben Isaac, I have sinned!"

         Awestruck Ben Isaac stood. The desert wind
         Blew his long mantle backward, laying bare
         The mournful secret of his shirt of hair.
         "I too, O friend, if not in act," he said,
         "In thought have verily sinned. Hast thou not read,
         'Better the eye should see than that desire
         Should wander?' Burning with a hidden fire
         That tears and prayers quench not, I come to thee
         For pity and for help, as thou to me.
         Pray for me, O my friend!" But Nathan cried,
         "Pray thou for me, Ben Isaac!"

                                         Side by side
         In the low sunshine by the turban stone
         They knelt; each made his brother's woe his own,
         Forgetting, in the agony and stress
         Of pitying love, his claim of selfishness;
         Peace, for his friend besought, his own became;
         His prayers were answered in another's name;
         And, when at last they rose up to embrace,
         Each saw God's pardon in his brother's face!

         Long after, when his headstone gathered moss,
         Traced on the targum-marge of Onkelos
         In Rabbi Nathan's hand these words were read:
         "Hope not the cure of sin till Self is dead;
         Forget it in love's service, and the debt
         Thou, canst not pay the angels shall forget;
         Heaven's gate is shut to him who comes alone;
         Save thou a soul, and it shall save thy own!"

         1868.

## NOREMBEGA.

Norembega, or Norimbegue, is the name given by early French fishermen and explorers to a fabulous country south of Cape Breton, first discovered by Verrazzani in 1524. It was supposed to have a magnificent city of the same name on a great river, probably the Penobscot. The site of this barbaric city is laid down on a map published at Antwerp in 1570. In 1604 Champlain sailed in search of the Northern Eldorado, twenty-two leagues up the Penobscot from the Isle Haute. He supposed the river to be that of Norembega, but wisely came to the conclusion that those travellers who told of the great city had never seen it. He saw no evidences of anything like civilization, but mentions the finding of a cross, very old and mossy, in the woods.

         THE winding way the serpent takes
         The mystic water took,
         From where, to count its beaded lakes,
         The forest sped its brook.

         A narrow space 'twixt shore and shore,
         For sun or stars to fall,
         While evermore, behind, before,
         Closed in the forest wall.

         The dim wood hiding underneath
         Wan flowers without a name;
         Life tangled with decay and death,
         League after league the same.

         Unbroken over swamp and hill
         The rounding shadow lay,
         Save where the river cut at will
         A pathway to the day.

         Beside that track of air and light,
         Weak as a child unweaned,
         At shut of day a Christian knight
         Upon his henchman leaned.

         The embers of the sunset's fires
         Along the clouds burned down;
         "I see," he said, "the domes and spires
         Of Norembega town."

         "Alack! the domes, O master mine,
         Are golden clouds on high;
         Yon spire is but the branchless pine
         That cuts the evening sky."

         "Oh, hush and hark! What sounds are these
         But chants and holy hymns?"
         "Thou hear'st the breeze that stirs the trees
         Though all their leafy limbs."

         "Is it a chapel bell that fills
         The air with its low tone?"
         "Thou hear'st the tinkle of the rills,
         The insect's vesper drone."

         "The Christ be praised!—He sets for me
         A blessed cross in sight!"
         "Now, nay, 't is but yon blasted tree
         With two gaunt arms outright!"

         "Be it wind so sad or tree so stark,
         It mattereth not, my knave;
         Methinks to funeral hymns I hark,
         The cross is for my grave!

         "My life is sped; I shall not see
         My home-set sails again;
         The sweetest eyes of Normandie
         Shall watch for me in vain.

         "Yet onward still to ear and eye
         The baffling marvel calls;
         I fain would look before I die
         On Norembega's walls.

         "So, haply, it shall be thy part
         At Christian feet to lay
         The mystery of the desert's heart
         My dead hand plucked away.

         "Leave me an hour of rest; go thou
         And look from yonder heights;
         Perchance the valley even now
         Is starred with city lights."

         The henchman climbed the nearest hill,
         He saw nor tower nor town,
         But, through the drear woods, lone and still,
         The river rolling down.

         He heard the stealthy feet of things
         Whose shapes he could not see,
         A flutter as of evil wings,
         The fall of a dead tree.

         The pines stood black against the moon,
         A sword of fire beyond;
         He heard the wolf howl, and the loon
         Laugh from his reedy pond.

         He turned him back: "O master dear,
         We are but men misled;
         And thou hast sought a city here
         To find a grave instead."

         "As God shall will! what matters where
         A true man's cross may stand,
         So Heaven be o'er it here as there
         In pleasant Norman land?

         "These woods, perchance, no secret hide
         Of lordly tower and hall;
         Yon river in its wanderings wide
         Has washed no city wall;

         "Yet mirrored in the sullen stream
         The holy stars are given
         Is Norembega, then, a dream
         Whose waking is in Heaven?

         "No builded wonder of these lands
         My weary eyes shall see;
         A city never made with hands
         Alone awaiteth me—

         "'Urbs Syon mystica;' I see
         Its mansions passing fair,
         'Condita caelo;' let me be,
         Dear Lord, a dweller there!"

         Above the dying exile hung
         The vision of the bard,
         As faltered on his failing tongue
         The song of good Bernard.

         The henchman dug at dawn a grave
         Beneath the hemlocks brown,
         And to the desert's keeping gave
         The lord of fief and town.

         Years after, when the Sieur Champlain
         Sailed up the unknown stream,
         And Norembega proved again
         A shadow and a dream,

         He found the Norman's nameless grave
         Within the hemlock's shade,
         And, stretching wide its arms to save,
         The sign that God had made,

         The cross-boughed tree that marked the spot
         And made it holy ground
         He needs the earthly city not
         Who hath the heavenly found.

         1869.

## MIRIAM.

### TO FREDERICK A. P. BARNARD.

         THE years are many since, in youth and hope,
         Under the Charter Oak, our horoscope
         We drew thick-studded with all favoring stars.
         Now, with gray beards, and faces seamed with scars
         From life's hard battle, meeting once again,
         We smile, half sadly, over dreams so vain;
         Knowing, at last, that it is not in man
         Who walketh to direct his steps, or plan
         His permanent house of life. Alike we loved
         The muses' haunts, and all our fancies moved
         To measures of old song. How since that day
         Our feet have parted from the path that lay
         So fair before us! Rich, from lifelong search
         Of truth, within thy Academic porch
         Thou sittest now, lord of a realm of fact,
         Thy servitors the sciences exact;
         Still listening with thy hand on Nature's keys,
         To hear the Samian's spheral harmonies
         And rhythm of law. I called from dream and song,
         Thank God! so early to a strife so long,
         That, ere it closed, the black, abundant hair
         Of boyhood rested silver-sown and spare
         On manhood's temples, now at sunset-chime
         Tread with fond feet the path of morning time.
         And if perchance too late I linger where
         The flowers have ceased to blow, and trees are bare,
         Thou, wiser in thy choice, wilt scarcely blame
         The friend who shields his folly with thy name.
         AMESBURY, 10th mo., 1870.

               . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

         One Sabbath day my friend and I
         After the meeting, quietly
         Passed from the crowded village lanes,
         White with dry dust for lack of rains,
         And climbed the neighboring slope, with feet
         Slackened and heavy from the heat,
         Although the day was wellnigh done,
         And the low angle of the sun
         Along the naked hillside cast
         Our shadows as of giants vast.
         We reached, at length, the topmost swell,
         Whence, either way, the green turf fell
         In terraces of nature down
         To fruit-hung orchards, and the town
         With white, pretenceless houses, tall
         Church-steeples, and, o'ershadowing all,
         Huge mills whose windows had the look
         Of eager eyes that ill could brook
         The Sabbath rest. We traced the track
         Of the sea-seeking river back,
         Glistening for miles above its mouth,
         Through the long valley to the south,
         And, looking eastward, cool to view,
         Stretched the illimitable blue
         Of ocean, from its curved coast-line;
         Sombred and still, the warm sunshine
         Filled with pale gold-dust all the reach
         Of slumberous woods from hill to beach,—
         Slanted on walls of thronged retreats
         From city toil and dusty streets,
         On grassy bluff, and dune of sand,
         And rocky islands miles from land;
         Touched the far-glancing sails, and showed
         White lines of foam where long waves flowed
         Dumb in the distance. In the north,
         Dim through their misty hair, looked forth
         The space-dwarfed mountains to the sea,
         From mystery to mystery!

         So, sitting on that green hill-slope,
         We talked of human life, its hope
         And fear, and unsolved doubts, and what
         It might have been, and yet was not.
         And, when at last the evening air
         Grew sweeter for the bells of prayer
         Ringing in steeples far below,
         We watched the people churchward go,
         Each to his place, as if thereon
         The true shekinah only shone;
         And my friend queried how it came
         To pass that they who owned the same
         Great Master still could not agree
         To worship Him in company.
         Then, broadening in his thought, he ran
         Over the whole vast field of man,—
         The varying forms of faith and creed
         That somehow served the holders' need;
         In which, unquestioned, undenied,
         Uncounted millions lived and died;
         The bibles of the ancient folk,
         Through which the heart of nations spoke;
         The old moralities which lent
         To home its sweetness and content,
         And rendered possible to bear
         The life of peoples everywhere
         And asked if we, who boast of light,
         Claim not a too exclusive right
         To truths which must for all be meant,
         Like rain and sunshine freely sent.
         In bondage to the letter still,
         We give it power to cramp and kill,—
         To tax God's fulness with a scheme
         Narrower than Peter's house-top dream,
         His wisdom and his love with plans
         Poor and inadequate as man's.
         It must be that He witnesses
         Somehow to all men that He is
         That something of His saving grace
         Reaches the lowest of the race,
         Who, through strange creed and rite, may draw
         The hints of a diviner law.
         We walk in clearer light;—but then,
         Is He not God?—are they not men?
         Are His responsibilities
         For us alone and not for these?

         And I made answer: "Truth is one;
         And, in all lands beneath the sun,
         Whoso hath eyes to see may see
         The tokens of its unity.
         No scroll of creed its fulness wraps,
         We trace it not by school-boy maps,
         Free as the sun and air it is
         Of latitudes and boundaries.
         In Vedic verse, in dull Koran,
         Are messages of good to man;
         The angels to our Aryan sires
         Talked by the earliest household fires;
         The prophets of the elder day,
         The slant-eyed sages of Cathay,
         Read not the riddle all amiss
         Of higher life evolved from this.

         "Nor doth it lessen what He taught,
         Or make the gospel Jesus brought
         Less precious, that His lips retold
         Some portion of that truth of old;
         Denying not the proven seers,
         The tested wisdom of the years;
         Confirming with his own impress
         The common law of righteousness.
         We search the world for truth; we cull
         The good, the pure, the beautiful,
         From graven stone and written scroll,
         From all old flower-fields of the soul;
         And, weary seekers of the best,
         We come back laden from our quest,
         To find that all the sages said
         Is in the Book our mothers read,
         And all our treasure of old thought
         In His harmonious fulness wrought
         Who gathers in one sheaf complete
         The scattered blades of God's sown wheat,
         The common growth that maketh good
         His all-embracing Fatherhood.

         "Wherever through the ages rise
         The altars of self-sacrifice,
         Where love its arms has opened wide,
         Or man for man has calmly died,
         I see the same white wings outspread
         That hovered o'er the Master's head!
         Up from undated time they come,
         The martyr souls of heathendom,
         And to His cross and passion bring
         Their fellowship of suffering.
         I trace His presence in the blind
         Pathetic gropings of my kind,—
         In prayers from sin and sorrow wrung,
         In cradle-hymns of life they sung,
         Each, in its measure, but a part
         Of the unmeasured Over-Heart;
         And with a stronger faith confess
         The greater that it owns the less.
         Good cause it is for thankfulness
         That the world-blessing of His life
         With the long past is not at strife;
         That the great marvel of His death
         To the one order witnesseth,
         No doubt of changeless goodness wakes,
         No link of cause and sequence breaks,
         But, one with nature, rooted is
         In the eternal verities;
         Whereby, while differing in degree
         As finite from infinity,
         The pain and loss for others borne,
         Love's crown of suffering meekly worn,
         The life man giveth for his friend
         Become vicarious in the end;
         Their healing place in nature take,
         And make life sweeter for their sake.

         "So welcome I from every source
         The tokens of that primal Force,
         Older than heaven itself, yet new
         As the young heart it reaches to,
         Beneath whose steady impulse rolls
         The tidal wave of human souls;
         Guide, comforter, and inward word,
         The eternal spirit of the Lord
         Nor fear I aught that science brings
         From searching through material things;
         Content to let its glasses prove,
         Not by the letter's oldness move,
         The myriad worlds on worlds that course
         The spaces of the universe;
         Since everywhere the Spirit walks
         The garden of the heart, and talks
         With man, as under Eden's trees,
         In all his varied languages.
         Why mourn above some hopeless flaw
         In the stone tables of the law,
         When scripture every day afresh
         Is traced on tablets of the flesh?
         By inward sense, by outward signs,
         God's presence still the heart divines;
         Through deepest joy of Him we learn,
         In sorest grief to Him we turn,
         And reason stoops its pride to share
         The child-like instinct of a prayer."

         And then, as is my wont, I told
         A story of the days of old,
         Not found in printed books,—in sooth,
         A fancy, with slight hint of truth,
         Showing how differing faiths agree
         In one sweet law of charity.
         Meanwhile the sky had golden grown,
         Our faces in its glory shone;
         But shadows down the valley swept,
         And gray below the ocean slept,
         As time and space I wandered o'er
         To tread the Mogul's marble floor,
         And see a fairer sunset fall
         On Jumna's wave and Agra's wall.

         The good Shah Akbar (peace be his alway!)
         Came forth from the Divan at close of day
         Bowed with the burden of his many cares,
         Worn with the hearing of unnumbered prayers,—
         Wild cries for justice, the importunate
         Appeals of greed and jealousy and hate,
         And all the strife of sect and creed and rite,
         Santon and Gouroo waging holy fight
         For the wise monarch, claiming not to be
         Allah's avenger, left his people free,
         With a faint hope, his Book scarce justified,
         That all the paths of faith, though severed wide,
         O'er which the feet of prayerful reverence passed,
         Met at the gate of Paradise at last.

         He sought an alcove of his cool hareem,
         Where, far beneath, he heard the Jumna's stream
         Lapse soft and low along his palace wall,
         And all about the cool sound of the fall
         Of fountains, and of water circling free
         Through marble ducts along the balcony;
         The voice of women in the distance sweet,
         And, sweeter still, of one who, at his feet,
         Soothed his tired ear with songs of a far land
         Where Tagus shatters on the salt sea-sand
         The mirror of its cork-grown hills of drouth
         And vales of vine, at Lisbon's harbor-mouth.

         The date-palms rustled not; the peepul laid
         Its topmost boughs against the balustrade,
         Motionless as the mimic leaves and vines
         That, light and graceful as the shawl-designs
         Of Delhi or Umritsir, twined in stone;
         And the tired monarch, who aside had thrown
         The day's hard burden, sat from care apart,
         And let the quiet steal into his heart
         From the still hour. Below him Agra slept,
         By the long light of sunset overswept
         The river flowing through a level land,
         By mango-groves and banks of yellow sand,
         Skirted with lime and orange, gay kiosks,
         Fountains at play, tall minarets of mosques,
         Fair pleasure-gardens, with their flowering trees
         Relieved against the mournful cypresses;
         And, air-poised lightly as the blown sea-foam,
         The marble wonder of some holy dome
         Hung a white moonrise over the still wood,
         Glassing its beauty in a stiller flood.

         Silent the monarch gazed, until the night
         Swift-falling hid the city from his sight;
         Then to the woman at his feet he said
         "Tell me, O Miriam, something thou hast read
         In childhood of the Master of thy faith,
         Whom Islam also owns. Our Prophet saith
         'He was a true apostle, yea, a Word
         And Spirit sent before me from the Lord.'
         Thus the Book witnesseth; and well I know
         By what thou art, O dearest, it is so.
         As the lute's tone the maker's hand betrays,
         The sweet disciple speaks her Master's praise."

         Then Miriam, glad of heart, (for in some sort
         She cherished in the Moslem's liberal court
         The sweet traditions of a Christian child;
         And, through her life of sense, the undefiled
         And chaste ideal of the sinless One
         Gazed on her with an eye she might not shun,—
         The sad, reproachful look of pity, born
         Of love that hath no part in wrath or scorn,)
         Began, with low voice and moist eyes, to tell
         Of the all-loving Christ, and what befell
         When the fierce zealots, thirsting for her blood,
         Dragged to his feet a shame of womanhood.
         How, when his searching answer pierced within
         Each heart, and touched the secret of its sin,
         And her accusers fled his face before,
         He bade the poor one go and sin no more.
         And Akbar said, after a moment's thought,
         "Wise is the lesson by thy prophet taught;
         Woe unto him who judges and forgets
         What hidden evil his own heart besets!
         Something of this large charity I find
         In all the sects that sever human kind;
         I would to Allah that their lives agreed
         More nearly with the lesson of their creed!
         Those yellow Lamas who at Meerut pray
         By wind and water power, and love to say
         'He who forgiveth not shall, unforgiven,
         Fail of the rest of Buddha,' and who even
         Spare the black gnat that stings them, vex my ears
         With the poor hates and jealousies and fears
         Nursed in their human hives. That lean, fierce priest
         Of thy own people, (be his heart increased
         By Allah's love!) his black robes smelling yet
         Of Goa's roasted Jews, have I not met
         Meek-faced, barefooted, crying in the street
         The saying of his prophet true and sweet,—
         'He who is merciful shall mercy meet!'"

         But, next day, so it chanced, as night began
         To fall, a murmur through the hareem ran
         That one, recalling in her dusky face
         The full-lipped, mild-eyed beauty of a race
         Known as the blameless Ethiops of Greek song,
         Plotting to do her royal master wrong,
         Watching, reproachful of the lingering light,
         The evening shadows deepen for her flight,
         Love-guided, to her home in a far land,
         Now waited death at the great Shah's command.
         Shapely as that dark princess for whose smile
         A world was bartered, daughter of the Nile
         Herself, and veiling in her large, soft eyes
         The passion and the languor of her skies,
         The Abyssinian knelt low at the feet
         Of her stern lord: "O king, if it be meet,
         And for thy honor's sake," she said, "that I,
         Who am the humblest of thy slaves, should die,
         I will not tax thy mercy to forgive.
         Easier it is to die than to outlive
         All that life gave me,—him whose wrong of thee
         Was but the outcome of his love for me,
         Cherished from childhood, when, beneath the shade
         Of templed Axum, side by side we played.
         Stolen from his arms, my lover followed me
         Through weary seasons over land and sea;
         And two days since, sitting disconsolate
         Within the shadow of the hareem gate,
         Suddenly, as if dropping from the sky,
         Down from the lattice of the balcony
         Fell the sweet song by Tigre's cowherds sung
         In the old music of his native tongue.
         He knew my voice, for love is quick of ear,
         Answering in song.

                              This night he waited near
         To fly with me. The fault was mine alone
         He knew thee not, he did but seek his own;
         Who, in the very shadow of thy throne,
         Sharing thy bounty, knowing all thou art,
         Greatest and best of men, and in her heart
         Grateful to tears for favor undeserved,
         Turned ever homeward, nor one moment swerved
         From her young love. He looked into my eyes,
         He heard my voice, and could not otherwise
         Than he hath done; yet, save one wild embrace
         When first we stood together face to face,
         And all that fate had done since last we met
         Seemed but a dream that left us children yet,
         He hath not wronged thee nor thy royal bed;
         Spare him, O king! and slay me in his stead!"

         But over Akbar's brows the frown hung black,
         And, turning to the eunuch at his back,
         "Take them," he said, "and let the Jumna's waves
         Hide both my shame and these accursed slaves!"
         His loathly length the unsexed bondman bowed
         "On my head be it!"

                               Straightway from a cloud
         Of dainty shawls and veils of woven mist
         The Christian Miriam rose, and, stooping, kissed
         The monarch's hand. Loose down her shoulders bare
         Swept all the rippled darkness of her hair,
         Veiling the bosom that, with high, quick swell
         Of fear and pity, through it rose and fell.

         "Alas!" she cried, "hast thou forgotten quite
         The words of Him we spake of yesternight?
         Or thy own prophet's, 'Whoso doth endure
         And pardon, of eternal life is sure'?
         O great and good! be thy revenge alone
         Felt in thy mercy to the erring shown;
         Let thwarted love and youth their pardon plead,
         Who sinned but in intent, and not in deed!"

         One moment the strong frame of Akbar shook
         With the great storm of passion. Then his look
         Softened to her uplifted face, that still
         Pleaded more strongly than all words, until
         Its pride and anger seemed like overblown,
         Spent clouds of thunder left to tell alone
         Of strife and overcoming. With bowed head,
         And smiting on his bosom: "God," he said,
         "Alone is great, and let His holy name
         Be honored, even to His servant's shame!
         Well spake thy prophet, Miriam,—he alone
         Who hath not sinned is meet to cast a stone
         At such as these, who here their doom await,
         Held like myself in the strong grasp of fate.
         They sinned through love, as I through love forgive;
         Take them beyond my realm, but let them live!"

         And, like a chorus to the words of grace,
         The ancient Fakir, sitting in his place,
         Motionless as an idol and as grim,
         In the pavilion Akbar built for him
         Under the court-yard trees, (for he was wise,
         Knew Menu's laws, and through his close-shut eyes
         Saw things far off, and as an open book
         Into the thoughts of other men could look,)
         Began, half chant, half howling, to rehearse
         The fragment of a holy Vedic verse;
         And thus it ran: "He who all things forgives
         Conquers himself and all things else, and lives
         Above the reach of wrong or hate or fear,
         Calm as the gods, to whom he is most dear."

         Two leagues from Agra still the traveller sees
         The tomb of Akbar through its cypress-trees;
         And, near at hand, the marble walls that hide
         The Christian Begum sleeping at his side.
         And o'er her vault of burial (who shall tell
         If it be chance alone or miracle?)
         The Mission press with tireless hand unrolls
         The words of Jesus on its lettered scrolls,—
         Tells, in all tongues, the tale of mercy o'er,
         And bids the guilty, "Go and sin no more!"

                 . . . . . . . . . . .

         It now was dew-fall; very still
         The night lay on the lonely hill,
         Down which our homeward steps we bent,
         And, silent, through great silence went,
         Save that the tireless crickets played
         Their long, monotonous serenade.
         A young moon, at its narrowest,
         Curved sharp against the darkening west;
         And, momently, the beacon's star,
         Slow wheeling o'er its rock afar,
         From out the level darkness shot
         One instant and again was not.
         And then my friend spake quietly
         The thought of both: "Yon crescent see!
         Like Islam's symbol-moon it gives
         Hints of the light whereby it lives
         Somewhat of goodness, something true
         From sun and spirit shining through
         All faiths, all worlds, as through the dark
         Of ocean shines the lighthouse spark,
         Attests the presence everywhere
         Of love and providential care.
         The faith the old Norse heart confessed
         In one dear name,—the hopefulest
         And tenderest heard from mortal lips
         In pangs of birth or death, from ships
         Ice-bitten in the winter sea,
         Or lisped beside a mother's knee,—
         The wiser world hath not outgrown,
         And the All-Father is our own!"

## NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON.

         NAUHAUGHT, the Indian deacon, who of old
         Dwelt, poor but blameless, where his narrowing Cape
         Stretches its shrunk arm out to all the winds
         And the relentless smiting of the waves,
         Awoke one morning from a pleasant dream
         Of a good angel dropping in his hand
         A fair, broad gold-piece, in the name of God.

         He rose and went forth with the early day
         Far inland, where the voices of the waves
         Mellowed and Mingled with the whispering leaves,
         As, through the tangle of the low, thick woods,
         He searched his traps. Therein nor beast nor bird
         He found; though meanwhile in the reedy pools
         The otter plashed, and underneath the pines
         The partridge drummed: and as his thoughts went back
         To the sick wife and little child at home,
         What marvel that the poor man felt his faith
         Too weak to bear its burden,—like a rope
         That, strand by strand uncoiling, breaks above
         The hand that grasps it. "Even now, O Lord!
         Send me," he prayed, "the angel of my dream!
         Nauhaught is very poor; he cannot wait."

         Even as he spake he heard at his bare feet
         A low, metallic clink, and, looking down,
         He saw a dainty purse with disks of gold
         Crowding its silken net. Awhile he held
         The treasure up before his eyes, alone
         With his great need, feeling the wondrous coins
         Slide through his eager fingers, one by one.
         So then the dream was true. The angel brought
         One broad piece only; should he take all these?
         Who would be wiser, in the blind, dumb woods?
         The loser, doubtless rich, would scarcely miss
         This dropped crumb from a table always full.
         Still, while he mused, he seemed to hear the cry
         Of a starved child; the sick face of his wife
         Tempted him. Heart and flesh in fierce revolt
         Urged the wild license of his savage youth
         Against his later scruples. Bitter toil,
         Prayer, fasting, dread of blame, and pitiless eyes
         To watch his halting,—had he lost for these
         The freedom of the woods;—the hunting-grounds
         Of happy spirits for a walled-in heaven
         Of everlasting psalms? One healed the sick
         Very far off thousands of moons ago
         Had he not prayed him night and day to come
         And cure his bed-bound wife? Was there a hell?
         Were all his fathers' people writhing there—
         Like the poor shell-fish set to boil alive—
         Forever, dying never? If he kept
         This gold, so needed, would the dreadful God
         Torment him like a Mohawk's captive stuck
         With slow-consuming splinters? Would the saints
         And the white angels dance and laugh to see him
         Burn like a pitch-pine torch? His Christian garb
         Seemed falling from him; with the fear and shame
         Of Adam naked at the cool of day,
         He gazed around. A black snake lay in coil
         On the hot sand, a crow with sidelong eye
         Watched from a dead bough. All his Indian lore
         Of evil blending with a convert's faith
         In the supernal terrors of the Book,
         He saw the Tempter in the coiling snake
         And ominous, black-winged bird; and all the while
         The low rebuking of the distant waves
         Stole in upon him like the voice of God
         Among the trees of Eden. Girding up
         His soul's loins with a resolute hand, he thrust
         The base thought from him: "Nauhaught, be a man
         Starve, if need be; but, while you live, look out
         From honest eyes on all men, unashamed.
         God help me! I am deacon of the church,
         A baptized, praying Indian! Should I do
         This secret meanness, even the barken knots
         Of the old trees would turn to eyes to see it,
         The birds would tell of it, and all the leaves
         Whisper above me: 'Nauhaught is a thief!'
         The sun would know it, and the stars that hide
         Behind his light would watch me, and at night
         Follow me with their sharp, accusing eyes.
         Yea, thou, God, seest me!" Then Nauhaught drew
         Closer his belt of leather, dulling thus
         The pain of hunger, and walked bravely back
         To the brown fishing-hamlet by the sea;
         And, pausing at the inn-door, cheerily asked
         "Who hath lost aught to-day?"
         "I," said a voice;
         "Ten golden pieces, in a silken purse,
         My daughter's handiwork." He looked, and to
         One stood before him in a coat of frieze,
         And the glazed hat of a seafaring man,
         Shrewd-faced, broad-shouldered, with no trace of wings.
         Marvelling, he dropped within the stranger's hand
         The silken web, and turned to go his way.
         But the man said: "A tithe at least is yours;
         Take it in God's name as an honest man."
         And as the deacon's dusky fingers closed
         Over the golden gift, "Yea, in God's name
         I take it, with a poor man's thanks," he said.
         So down the street that, like a river of sand,
         Ran, white in sunshine, to the summer sea,
         He sought his home singing and praising God;
         And when his neighbors in their careless way
         Spoke of the owner of the silken purse—
         A Wellfleet skipper, known in every port
         That the Cape opens in its sandy wall—
         He answered, with a wise smile, to himself
         "I saw the angel where they see a man."
         1870.

## THE SISTERS.

         ANNIE and Rhoda, sisters twain,
         Woke in the night to the sound of rain,

         The rush of wind, the ramp and roar
         Of great waves climbing a rocky shore.

         Annie rose up in her bed-gown white,
         And looked out into the storm and night.

         "Hush, and hearken!" she cried in fear,
         "Hearest thou nothing, sister dear?"

         "I hear the sea, and the plash of rain,
         And roar of the northeast hurricane.

         "Get thee back to the bed so warm,
         No good comes of watching a storm.

         "What is it to thee, I fain would know,
         That waves are roaring and wild winds blow?

         "No lover of thine's afloat to miss
         The harbor-lights on a night like this."

         "But I heard a voice cry out my name,
         Up from the sea on the wind it came.

         "Twice and thrice have I heard it call,
         And the voice is the voice of Estwick Hall!"

         On her pillow the sister tossed her head.
         "Hall of the Heron is safe," she said.

         "In the tautest schooner that ever swam
         He rides at anchor in Anisquam.

         "And, if in peril from swamping sea
         Or lee shore rocks, would he call on thee?"

         But the girl heard only the wind and tide,
         And wringing her small white hands she cried,

         "O sister Rhoda, there's something wrong;
         I hear it again, so loud and long.

         "'Annie! Annie!' I hear it call,
         And the voice is the voice of Estwick Hall!"

         Up sprang the elder, with eyes aflame,
         "Thou liest! He never would call thy name!

         "If he did, I would pray the wind and sea
         To keep him forever from thee and me!"

         Then out of the sea blew a dreadful blast;
         Like the cry of a dying man it passed.

         The young girl hushed on her lips a groan,
         But through her tears a strange light shone,—

         The solemn joy of her heart's release
         To own and cherish its love in peace.

         "Dearest!" she whispered, under breath,
         "Life was a lie, but true is death.

         "The love I hid from myself away
         Shall crown me now in the light of day.

         "My ears shall never to wooer list,
         Never by lover my lips be kissed.

         "Sacred to thee am I henceforth,
         Thou in heaven and I on earth!"

         She came and stood by her sister's bed
         "Hall of the Heron is dead!" she said.

         "The wind and the waves their work have done,
         We shall see him no more beneath the sun.

         "Little will reek that heart of thine,
         It loved him not with a love like mine.

         "I, for his sake, were he but here,
         Could hem and 'broider thy bridal gear,

         "Though hands should tremble and eyes be wet,
         And stitch for stitch in my heart be set.

         "But now my soul with his soul I wed;
         Thine the living, and mine the dead!"

         1871.

## MARGUERITE.

### MASSACHUSETTS BAY, 1760.

Upwards of one thousand of the Acadian peasants forcibly taken from their homes on the Gaspereau and Basin of Minas were assigned to the several towns of the Massachusetts colony, the children being bound by the authorities to service or labor.

         THE robins sang in the orchard, the buds into
         blossoms grew;
         Little of human sorrow the buds and the robins
         knew!
         Sick, in an alien household, the poor French
         neutral lay;
         Into her lonesome garret fell the light of the April
         day,
         Through the dusty window, curtained by the spider's
         warp and woof,
         On the loose-laid floor of hemlock, on oaken ribs
         of roof,
         The bedquilt's faded patchwork, the teacups on the
         stand,
         The wheel with flaxen tangle, as it dropped from
         her sick hand.

         What to her was the song of the robin, or warm
         morning light,
         As she lay in the trance of the dying, heedless of
         sound or sight?

         Done was the work of her bands, she had eaten her
         bitter bread;
         The world of the alien people lay behind her dim
         and dead.

         But her soul went back to its child-time; she saw
         the sun o'erflow
         With gold the Basin of Minas, and set over
         Gaspereau;

         The low, bare flats at ebb-tide, the rush of the sea
         at flood,
         Through inlet and creek and river, from dike to
         upland wood;

         The gulls in the red of morning, the fish-hawk's
         rise and fall,
         The drift of the fog in moonshine, over the dark
         coast-wall.

         She saw the face of her mother, she heard the song
         she sang;
         And far off, faintly, slowly, the bell for vespers
         rang.

         By her bed the hard-faced mistress sat, smoothing
         the wrinkled sheet,
         Peering into the face, so helpless, and feeling the
         ice-cold feet.

         With a vague remorse atoning for her greed and
         long abuse,
         By care no longer heeded and pity too late for use.

         Up the stairs of the garret softly the son of the
         mistress stepped,
         Leaned over the head-board, covering his face with
         his hands, and wept.

         Outspake the mother, who watched him sharply,
         with brow a-frown
         "What! love you the Papist, the beggar, the
         charge of the town?"

         Be she Papist or beggar who lies here, I know
         and God knows
         I love her, and fain would go with her wherever
         she goes!

         "O mother! that sweet face came pleading, for
         love so athirst.
         You saw but the town-charge; I knew her God's
         angel at first."

         Shaking her gray head, the mistress hushed down
         a bitter cry;
         And awed by the silence and shadow of death
         drawing nigh,

         She murmured a psalm of the Bible; but closer
         the young girl pressed,
         With the last of her life in her fingers, the cross
         to her breast.

         "My son, come away," cried the mother, her voice
         cruel grown.
         "She is joined to her idols, like Ephraim; let her
         alone!"

         But he knelt with his hand on her forehead, his
         lips to her ear,
         And he called back the soul that was passing
         "Marguerite, do you hear?"

         She paused on the threshold of Heaven; love, pity,
         surprise,
         Wistful, tender, lit up for an instant the cloud of
         her eyes.

         With his heart on his lips he kissed her, but never
         her cheek grew red,
         And the words the living long for he spake in the
         ear of the dead.

         And the robins sang in the orchard, where buds to
         blossoms grew;
         Of the folded hands and the still face never the
         robins knew!

         1871.

## THE ROBIN.

         MY old Welsh neighbor over the way
         Crept slowly out in the sun of spring,
         Pushed from her ears the locks of gray,
         And listened to hear the robin sing.

         Her grandson, playing at marbles, stopped,
         And, cruel in sport as boys will be,
         Tossed a stone at the bird, who hopped
         From bough to bough in the apple-tree.

         "Nay!" said the grandmother; "have you not heard,
         My poor, bad boy! of the fiery pit,
         And how, drop by drop, this merciful bird
         Carries the water that quenches it?

         "He brings cool dew in his little bill,
         And lets it fall on the souls of sin
         You can see the mark on his red breast still
         Of fires that scorch as he drops it in.

         "My poor Bron rhuddyn! my breast-burned bird,
         Singing so sweetly from limb to limb,
         Very dear to the heart of Our Lord
         Is he who pities the lost like Him!"

         "Amen!" I said to the beautiful myth;
         "Sing, bird of God, in my heart as well:
         Each good thought is a drop wherewith
         To cool and lessen the fires of hell.

         "Prayers of love like rain-drops fall,
         Tears of pity are cooling dew,
         And dear to the heart of Our Lord are all
         Who suffer like Him in the good they do!"

         1871.

## THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM.

### INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

THE beginning of German emigration to America may be traced to the personal influence of William Penn, who in 1677 visited the Continent, and made the acquaintance of an intelligent and highly cultivated circle of Pietists, or Mystics, who, reviving in the seventeenth century the spiritual faith and worship of Tauler and the "Friends of God" in the fourteenth, gathered about the pastor Spener, and the young and beautiful Eleonora Johanna Von Merlau. In this circle originated the Frankfort Land Company, which bought of William Penn, the Governor of Pennsylvania, a tract of land near the new city of Philadelphia. The company's agent in the New World was a rising young lawyer, Francis Daniel Pastorius, son of Judge Pastorius, of Windsheim, who, at the age of seventeen, entered the University of Altorf. He studied law at, Strasburg, Basle, and Jena, and at Ratisbon, the seat of the Imperial Government, obtained a practical knowledge of international polity. Successful in all his examinations and disputations, he received the degree of Doctor of Law at Nuremberg in 1676. In 1679 he was a law-lecturer at Frankfort, where he became deeply interested in the teachings of Dr. Spener. In 1680-81 he travelled in France, England, Ireland, and Italy with his friend Herr Von Rodeck. "I was," he says, "glad to enjoy again the company of my Christian friends, rather than be with Von Rodeck feasting and dancing." In 1683, in company with a small number of German Friends, he emigrated to America, settling upon the Frankfort Company's tract between the Schuylkill and the Delaware rivers. The township was divided into four hamlets, namely, Germantown, Krisheim, Crefield, and Sommerhausen. Soon after his arrival he united himself with the Society of Friends, and became one of its most able and devoted members, as well as the recognized head and lawgiver of the settlement. He married, two years after his arrival, Anneke (Anna), daughter of Dr. Klosterman, of Muhlheim. In the year 1688 he drew up a memorial against slaveholding, which was adopted by the Germantown Friends and sent up to the Monthly Meeting, and thence to the Yearly Meeting at Philadelphia. It is noteworthy as the first protest made by a religious body against Negro Slavery. The original document was discovered in 1844 by the Philadelphia antiquarian, Nathan Kite, and published in The Friend (Vol. XVIII. No. 16). It is a bold and direct appeal to the best instincts of the heart. "Have not," he asks, "these negroes as much right to fight for their freedom as you have to keep them slaves?" Under the wise direction of Pastorius, the German-town settlement grew and prospered. The inhabitants planted orchards and vineyards, and surrounded themselves with souvenirs of their old home. A large number of them were linen-weavers, as well as small farmers. The Quakers were the principal sect, but men of all religions were tolerated, and lived together in harmony. In 1692 Richard Frame published, in what he called verse, a Description of Pennsylvania, in which he alludes to the settlement:—

          "The German town of which I spoke before,
          Which is at least in length one mile or more,
          Where lives High German people and Low Dutch,
          Whose trade in weaving linen cloth is much,
          —There grows the flax, as also you may know
          That from the same they do divide the tow.
          Their trade suits well their habitation,
          We find convenience for their occupation."

Pastorius seems to have been on intimate terms with William Penn, Thomas Lloyd, Chief Justice Logan, Thomas Story, and other leading men in the Province belonging to his own religious society, as also with Kelpius, the learned Mystic of the Wissahickon, with the pastor of the Swedes' church, and the leaders of the Mennonites. He wrote a description of Pennsylvania, which was published at Frankfort and Leipsic in 1700 and 1701. His Lives of the Saints, etc., written in German and dedicated to Professor Schurmberg, his old teacher, was published in 1690. He left behind him many unpublished manuscripts covering a very wide range of subjects, most of which are now lost. One huge manuscript folio, entitled Hive Beestock, Melliotropheum Alucar, or Rusca Apium, still remains, containing one thousand pages with about one hundred lines to a page. It is a medley of knowledge and fancy, history, philosophy, and poetry, written in seven languages. A large portion of his poetry is devoted to the pleasures of gardening, the description of flowers, and the care of bees. The following specimen of his punning Latin is addressed to an orchard-pilferer:—

          "Quisquis in haec furtim reptas viridaria nostra
          Tangere fallaci poma caveto mane,
          Si non obsequeris faxit Deus omne quod opto,
          Cum malis nostris ut mala cuncta feras."

    Professor Oswald Seidensticker, to whose papers in Der Deutsche Pioneer
    and that able periodical the Penn Monthly, of Philadelphia, I am
    indebted for many of the foregoing facts in regard to the German
    pilgrims of the New World, thus closes his notice of Pastorius:—
    "No tombstone, not even a record of burial, indicates where his remains
    have found their last resting-place, and the pardonable desire to
    associate the homage due to this distinguished man with some visible
    memento can not be gratified. There is no reason to suppose that he was
    interred in any other place than the Friends' old burying-ground in
    Germantown, though the fact is not attested by any definite source of
    information. After all, this obliteration of the last trace of his
    earthly existence is but typical of what has overtaken the times which
    he represents; that Germantown which he founded, which saw him live and
    move, is at present but a quaint idyl of the past, almost a myth, barely
    remembered and little cared for by the keener race that has succeeded.
    The Pilgrims of Plymouth have not lacked historian and poet. Justice has
    been done to their faith, courage, and self-sacrifice, and to the mighty
    influence of their endeavors to establish righteousness on the earth.
    The Quaker pilgrims of Pennsylvania, seeking the same object by
    different means, have not been equally fortunate. The power of their
    testimony for truth and holiness, peace and freedom, enforced only by
    what Milton calls "the unresistible might of meekness," has been felt
    through two centuries in the amelioration of penal severities, the
    abolition of slavery, the reform of the erring, the relief of the poor
    and suffering,—felt, in brief, in every step of human progress. But of
    the men themselves, with the single exception of William Penn, scarcely
    anything is known. Contrasted, from the outset, with the stern,
    aggressive Puritans of New England, they have come to be regarded as
    "a feeble folk," with a personality as doubtful as their unrecorded
    graves. They were not soldiers, like Miles Standish; they had no figure
    so picturesque as Vane, no leader so rashly brave and haughty as
    Endicott. No Cotton Mather wrote their Magnalia; they had no awful drama
    of supernaturalism in which Satan and his angels were actors; and the
    only witch mentioned in their simple annals was a poor old Swedish
    woman, who, on complaint of her countrywomen, was tried and acquitted
    of everything but imbecility and folly. Nothing but common-place offices
    of civility came to pass between them and the Indians; indeed, their
    enemies taunted them with the fact that the savages did not regard them
    as Christians, but just such men as themselves. Yet it must be apparent
    to every careful observer of the progress of American civilization that
    its two principal currents had their sources in the entirely opposite
    directions of the Puritan and Quaker colonies. To use the words of a
    late writer: (1) "The historical forces, with which no others may be
    compared in their influence on the people, have been those of the
    Puritan and the Quaker. The strength of the one was in the confession of
    an invisible Presence, a righteous, eternal Will, which would establish
    righteousness on earth; and thence arose the conviction of a direct
    personal responsibility, which could be tempted by no external splendor
    and could be shaken by no internal agitation, and could not be evaded or
    transferred. The strength of the other was the witness in the human
    spirit to an eternal Word, an Inner Voice which spoke to each alone,
    while yet it spoke to every man; a Light which each was to follow, and
    which yet was the light of the world; and all other voices were silent
    before this, and the solitary path whither it led was more sacred than
    the worn ways of cathedral-aisles." It will be sufficiently apparent to
    the reader that, in the poem which follows, I have attempted nothing
    beyond a study of the life and times of the Pennsylvania colonist,—a
    simple picture of a noteworthy man and his locality. The colors of my
    sketch are all very sober, toned down to the quiet and dreamy atmosphere
    through which its subject is visible. Whether, in the glare and tumult
    of the present time, such a picture will find favor may well be
    questioned. I only know that it has beguiled for me some hours of
    weariness, and that, whatever may be its measure of public appreciation,
    it has been to me its own reward.
                                                   J. G. W.
    AMESBURY, 5th mo., 1872.

         HAIL to posterity!
         Hail, future men of Germanopolis!
         Let the young generations yet to be
         Look kindly upon this.
         Think how your fathers left their native land,—
         Dear German-land! O sacred hearths and homes!—

         And, where the wild beast roams,
         In patience planned
         New forest-homes beyond the mighty sea,
         There undisturbed and free
         To live as brothers of one family.
         What pains and cares befell,
         What trials and what fears,
         Remember, and wherein we have done well
         Follow our footsteps, men of coming years!
         Where we have failed to do
         Aright, or wisely live,
         Be warned by us, the better way pursue,
         And, knowing we were human, even as you,
         Pity us and forgive!
         Farewell, Posterity!
         Farewell, dear Germany
         Forevermore farewell!

         (From the Latin of Francis DANIEL PASTORIUS in
         the Germantown Records. 1688.)

         PRELUDE.

         I SING the Pilgrim of a softer clime
         And milder speech than those brave men's who brought
         To the ice and iron of our winter time
         A will as firm, a creed as stern, and wrought
         With one mailed hand, and with the other fought.
         Simply, as fits my theme, in homely rhyme
         I sing the blue-eyed German Spener taught,
         Through whose veiled, mystic faith the Inward Light,
         Steady and still, an easy brightness, shone,
         Transfiguring all things in its radiance white.
         The garland which his meekness never sought
         I bring him; over fields of harvest sown
         With seeds of blessing, now to ripeness grown,
         I bid the sower pass before the reapers' sight.

                       . . . . . . . . . .

         Never in tenderer quiet lapsed the day
         From Pennsylvania's vales of spring away,
         Where, forest-walled, the scattered hamlets lay

         Along the wedded rivers. One long bar
         Of purple cloud, on which the evening star
         Shone like a jewel on a scimitar,

         Held the sky's golden gateway. Through the deep
         Hush of the woods a murmur seemed to creep,
         The Schuylkill whispering in a voice of sleep.

         All else was still. The oxen from their ploughs
         Rested at last, and from their long day's browse
         Came the dun files of Krisheim's home-bound cows.

         And the young city, round whose virgin zone
         The rivers like two mighty arms were thrown,
         Marked by the smoke of evening fires alone,

         Lay in the distance, lovely even then
         With its fair women and its stately men
         Gracing the forest court of William Penn,

         Urban yet sylvan; in its rough-hewn frames
         Of oak and pine the dryads held their claims,
         And lent its streets their pleasant woodland names.

         Anna Pastorius down the leafy lane
         Looked city-ward, then stooped to prune again
         Her vines and simples, with a sigh of pain.

         For fast the streaks of ruddy sunset paled
         In the oak clearing, and, as daylight failed,
         Slow, overhead, the dusky night-birds sailed.

         Again she looked: between green walls of shade,
         With low-bent head as if with sorrow weighed,
         Daniel Pastorius slowly came and said,

         "God's peace be with thee, Anna!" Then he stood
         Silent before her, wrestling with the mood
         Of one who sees the evil and not good.

         "What is it, my Pastorius?" As she spoke,
         A slow, faint smile across his features broke,
         Sadder than tears. "Dear heart," he said, "our folk

         "Are even as others. Yea, our goodliest Friends
         Are frail; our elders have their selfish ends,
         And few dare trust the Lord to make amends

         "For duty's loss. So even our feeble word
         For the dumb slaves the startled meeting heard
         As if a stone its quiet waters stirred;

         "And, as the clerk ceased reading, there began
         A ripple of dissent which downward ran
         In widening circles, as from man to man.

         "Somewhat was said of running before sent,
         Of tender fear that some their guide outwent,
         Troublers of Israel. I was scarce intent

         "On hearing, for behind the reverend row
         Of gallery Friends, in dumb and piteous show,
         I saw, methought, dark faces full of woe.

         "And, in the spirit, I was taken where
         They toiled and suffered; I was made aware
         Of shame and wrath and anguish and despair!

         "And while the meeting smothered our poor plea
         With cautious phrase, a Voice there seemed to be,
         As ye have done to these ye do to me!'

         "So it all passed; and the old tithe went on
         Of anise, mint, and cumin, till the sun
         Set, leaving still the weightier work undone.

         "Help, for the good man faileth! Who is strong,
         If these be weak? Who shall rebuke the wrong,
         If these consent? How long, O Lord! how long!"

         He ceased; and, bound in spirit with the bound,
         With folded arms, and eyes that sought the ground,
         Walked musingly his little garden round.

         About him, beaded with the falling dew,
         Rare plants of power and herbs of healing grew,
         Such as Van Helmont and Agrippa knew.

         For, by the lore of Gorlitz' gentle sage,
         With the mild mystics of his dreamy age
         He read the herbal signs of nature's page,

         As once he heard in sweet Von Merlau's' bowers
         Fair as herself, in boyhood's happy hours,
         The pious Spener read his creed in flowers.

         "The dear Lord give us patience!" said his wife,
         Touching with finger-tip an aloe, rife
         With leaves sharp-pointed like an Aztec knife

         Or Carib spear, a gift to William Penn
         From the rare gardens of John Evelyn,
         Brought from the Spanish Main by merchantmen.

         "See this strange plant its steady purpose hold,
         And, year by year, its patient leaves unfold,
         Till the young eyes that watched it first are old.

         "But some time, thou hast told me, there shall come
         A sudden beauty, brightness, and perfume,
         The century-moulded bud shall burst in bloom.

         "So may the seed which hath been sown to-day
         Grow with the years, and, after long delay,
         Break into bloom, and God's eternal Yea!

         "Answer at last the patient prayers of them
         Who now, by faith alone, behold its stem
         Crowned with the flowers of Freedom's diadem.

         "Meanwhile, to feel and suffer, work and wait,
         Remains for us. The wrong indeed is great,
         But love and patience conquer soon or late."

         "Well hast thou said, my Anna!" Tenderer
         Than youth's caress upon the head of her
         Pastorius laid his hand. "Shall we demur

         "Because the vision tarrieth? In an hour
         We dream not of, the slow-grown bud may flower,
         And what was sown in weakness rise in power!"

         Then through the vine-draped door whose legend read,
         "Procul este profani!" Anna led
         To where their child upon his little bed

         Looked up and smiled. "Dear heart," she said, "if we
         Must bearers of a heavy burden be,
         Our boy, God willing, yet the day shall see

         "When from the gallery to the farthest seat,
         Slave and slave-owner shall no longer meet,
         But all sit equal at the Master's feet."

         On the stone hearth the blazing walnut block
         Set the low walls a-glimmer, showed the cock
         Rebuking Peter on the Van Wyck clock,

         Shone on old tomes of law and physic, side
         By side with Fox and Belimen, played at hide
         And seek with Anna, midst her household pride

         Of flaxen webs, and on the table, bare
         Of costly cloth or silver cup, but where,
         Tasting the fat shads of the Delaware,

         The courtly Penn had praised the goodwife's cheer,
         And quoted Horace o'er her home brewed beer,
         Till even grave Pastorius smiled to hear.

         In such a home, beside the Schuylkill's wave,
         He dwelt in peace with God and man, and gave
         Food to the poor and shelter to the slave.

         For all too soon the New World's scandal shamed
         The righteous code by Penn and Sidney framed,
         And men withheld the human rights they claimed.

         And slowly wealth and station sanction lent,
         And hardened avarice, on its gains intent,
         Stifled the inward whisper of dissent.

         Yet all the while the burden rested sore
         On tender hearts. At last Pastorius bore
         Their warning message to the Church's door

         In God's name; and the leaven of the word
         Wrought ever after in the souls who heard,
         And a dead conscience in its grave-clothes stirred

         To troubled life, and urged the vain excuse
         Of Hebrew custom, patriarchal use,
         Good in itself if evil in abuse.

         Gravely Pastorius listened, not the less
         Discerning through the decent fig-leaf dress
         Of the poor plea its shame of selfishness.

         One Scripture rule, at least, was unforgot;
         He hid the outcast, and betrayed him not;
         And, when his prey the human hunter sought,

         He scrupled not, while Anna's wise delay
         And proffered cheer prolonged the master's stay,
         To speed the black guest safely on his way.

         Yet, who shall guess his bitter grief who lends
         His life to some great cause, and finds his friends
         Shame or betray it for their private ends?

         How felt the Master when his chosen strove
         In childish folly for their seats above;
         And that fond mother, blinded by her love,

         Besought him that her sons, beside his throne,
         Might sit on either hand? Amidst his own
         A stranger oft, companionless and lone,

         God's priest and prophet stands. The martyr's pain
         Is not alone from scourge and cell and chain;
         Sharper the pang when, shouting in his train,

         His weak disciples by their lives deny
         The loud hosannas of their daily cry,
         And make their echo of his truth a lie.

         His forest home no hermit's cell he found,
         Guests, motley-minded, drew his hearth around,
         And held armed truce upon its neutral ground.

         There Indian chiefs with battle-bows unstrung,
         Strong, hero-limbed, like those whom Homer sung,
         Pastorius fancied, when the world was young,

         Came with their tawny women, lithe and tall,
         Like bronzes in his friend Von Rodeck's hall,
         Comely, if black, and not unpleasing all.

         There hungry folk in homespun drab and gray
         Drew round his board on Monthly Meeting day,
         Genial, half merry in their friendly way.

         Or, haply, pilgrims from the Fatherland,
         Weak, timid, homesick, slow to understand
         The New World's promise, sought his helping hand.

         Or painful Kelpius (13) from his hermit den
         By Wissahickon, maddest of good men,
         Dreamed o'er the Chiliast dreams of Petersen.

         Deep in the woods, where the small river slid
         Snake-like in shade, the Helmstadt Mystic hid,
         Weird as a wizard, over arts forbid,

         Reading the books of Daniel and of John,
         And Behmen's Morning-Redness, through the Stone
         Of Wisdom, vouchsafed to his eyes alone,

         Whereby he read what man ne'er read before,
         And saw the visions man shall see no more,
         Till the great angel, striding sea and shore,

         Shall bid all flesh await, on land or ships,
         The warning trump of the Apocalypse,
         Shattering the heavens before the dread eclipse.

         Or meek-eyed Mennonist his bearded chin
         Leaned o'er the gate; or Ranter, pure within,
         Aired his perfection in a world of sin.

         Or, talking of old home scenes, Op der Graaf
         Teased the low back-log with his shodden staff,
         Till the red embers broke into a laugh

         And dance of flame, as if they fain would cheer
         The rugged face, half tender, half austere,
         Touched with the pathos of a homesick tear!

         Or Sluyter, (14) saintly familist, whose word
         As law the Brethren of the Manor heard,
         Announced the speedy terrors of the Lord,

         And turned, like Lot at Sodom, from his race,
         Above a wrecked world with complacent face
         Riding secure upon his plank of grace!

         Haply, from Finland's birchen groves exiled,
         Manly in thought, in simple ways a child,
         His white hair floating round his visage mild,

         The Swedish pastor sought the Quaker's door,
         Pleased from his neighbor's lips to hear once more
         His long-disused and half-forgotten lore.

         For both could baffle Babel's lingual curse,
         And speak in Bion's Doric, and rehearse
         Cleanthes' hymn or Virgil's sounding verse.

         And oft Pastorius and the meek old man
         Argued as Quaker and as Lutheran,
         Ending in Christian love, as they began.

         With lettered Lloyd on pleasant morns he strayed
         Where Sommerhausen over vales of shade
         Looked miles away, by every flower delayed,

         Or song of bird, happy and free with one
         Who loved, like him, to let his memory run
         Over old fields of learning, and to sun

         Himself in Plato's wise philosophies,
         And dream with Philo over mysteries
         Whereof the dreamer never finds the keys;

         To touch all themes of thought, nor weakly stop
         For doubt of truth, but let the buckets drop
         Deep down and bring the hidden waters up (15)

         For there was freedom in that wakening time
         Of tender souls; to differ was not crime;
         The varying bells made up the perfect chime.

         On lips unlike was laid the altar's coal,
         The white, clear light, tradition-colored, stole
         Through the stained oriel of each human soul.

         Gathered from many sects, the Quaker brought
         His old beliefs, adjusting to the thought
         That moved his soul the creed his fathers taught.

         One faith alone, so broad that all mankind
         Within themselves its secret witness find,
         The soul's communion with the Eternal Mind,

         The Spirit's law, the Inward Rule and Guide,
         Scholar and peasant, lord and serf, allied,
         The polished Penn and Cromwell's Ironside.

         As still in Hemskerck's Quaker Meeting, (16) face
         By face in Flemish detail, we may trace
         How loose-mouthed boor and fine ancestral grace

         Sat in close contrast,—the clipt-headed churl,
         Broad market-dame, and simple serving-girl
         By skirt of silk and periwig in curl

         For soul touched soul; the spiritual treasure-trove
         Made all men equal, none could rise above
         Nor sink below that level of God's love.

         So, with his rustic neighbors sitting down,
         The homespun frock beside the scholar's gown,
         Pastorius to the manners of the town

         Added the freedom of the woods, and sought
         The bookless wisdom by experience taught,
         And learned to love his new-found home, while not

         Forgetful of the old; the seasons went
         Their rounds, and somewhat to his spirit lent
         Of their own calm and measureless content.

         Glad even to tears, he heard the robin sing
         His song of welcome to the Western spring,
         And bluebird borrowing from the sky his wing.

         And when the miracle of autumn came,
         And all the woods with many-colored flame
         Of splendor, making summer's greenness tame,

         Burned, unconsumed, a voice without a sound
         Spake to him from each kindled bush around,
         And made the strange, new landscape holy ground

         And when the bitter north-wind, keen and swift,
         Swept the white street and piled the dooryard drift,
         He exercised, as Friends might say, his gift

         Of verse, Dutch, English, Latin, like the hash
         Of corn and beans in Indian succotash;
         Dull, doubtless, but with here and there a flash

         Of wit and fine conceit,—the good man's play
         Of quiet fancies, meet to while away
         The slow hours measuring off an idle day.

         At evening, while his wife put on her look
         Of love's endurance, from its niche he took
         The written pages of his ponderous book.

         And read, in half the languages of man,
         His "Rusca Apium," which with bees began,
         And through the gamut of creation ran.

         Or, now and then, the missive of some friend
         In gray Altorf or storied Nurnberg penned
         Dropped in upon him like a guest to spend

         The night beneath his roof-tree. Mystical
         The fair Von Merlau spake as waters fall
         And voices sound in dreams, and yet withal

         Human and sweet, as if each far, low tone,
         Over the roses of her gardens blown
         Brought the warm sense of beauty all her own.

         Wise Spener questioned what his friend could trace
         Of spiritual influx or of saving grace
         In the wild natures of the Indian race.

         And learned Schurmberg, fain, at times, to look
         From Talmud, Koran, Veds, and Pentateuch,
         Sought out his pupil in his far-off nook,

         To query with him of climatic change,
         Of bird, beast, reptile, in his forest range,
         Of flowers and fruits and simples new and strange.

         And thus the Old and New World reached their hands
         Across the water, and the friendly lands
         Talked with each other from their severed strands.

         Pastorius answered all: while seed and root
         Sent from his new home grew to flower and fruit
         Along the Rhine and at the Spessart's foot;

         And, in return, the flowers his boyhood knew
         Smiled at his door, the same in form and hue,
         And on his vines the Rhenish clusters grew.

         No idler he; whoever else might shirk,
         He set his hand to every honest work,—
         Farmer and teacher, court and meeting clerk.

         Still on the town seal his device is found,
         Grapes, flax, and thread-spool on a trefoil ground,
         With "Vinum, Linum et Textrinum" wound.

         One house sufficed for gospel and for law,
         Where Paul and Grotius, Scripture text and saw,
         Assured the good, and held the rest in awe.

         Whatever legal maze he wandered through,
         He kept the Sermon on the Mount in view,
         And justice always into mercy grew.

         No whipping-post he needed, stocks, nor jail,
         Nor ducking-stool; the orchard-thief grew pale
         At his rebuke, the vixen ceased to rail,

         The usurer's grasp released the forfeit land;
         The slanderer faltered at the witness-stand,
         And all men took his counsel for command.

         Was it caressing air, the brooding love
         Of tenderer skies than German land knew of,
         Green calm below, blue quietness above,

         Still flow of water, deep repose of wood
         That, with a sense of loving Fatherhood
         And childlike trust in the Eternal Good,

         Softened all hearts, and dulled the edge of hate,
         Hushed strife, and taught impatient zeal to wait
         The slow assurance of the better state?

         Who knows what goadings in their sterner way
         O'er jagged ice, relieved by granite gray,
         Blew round the men of Massachusetts Bay?

         What hate of heresy the east-wind woke?
         What hints of pitiless power and terror spoke
         In waves that on their iron coast-line broke?

         Be it as it may: within the Land of Penn
         The sectary yielded to the citizen,
         And peaceful dwelt the many-creeded men.

         Peace brooded over all. No trumpet stung
         The air to madness, and no steeple flung
         Alarums down from bells at midnight rung.

         The land slept well. The Indian from his face
         Washed all his war-paint off, and in the place
         Of battle-marches sped the peaceful chase,

         Or wrought for wages at the white man's side,—
         Giving to kindness what his native pride
         And lazy freedom to all else denied.

         And well the curious scholar loved the old
         Traditions that his swarthy neighbors told
         By wigwam-fires when nights were growing cold,

         Discerned the fact round which their fancy drew
         Its dreams, and held their childish faith more true
         To God and man than half the creeds he knew.

         The desert blossomed round him; wheat-fields rolled
         Beneath the warm wind waves of green and gold;
         The planted ear returned its hundred-fold.

         Great clusters ripened in a warmer sun
         Than that which by the Rhine stream shines upon
         The purpling hillsides with low vines o'errun.

         About each rustic porch the humming-bird
         Tried with light bill, that scarce a petal stirred,
         The Old World flowers to virgin soil transferred;

         And the first-fruits of pear and apple, bending
         The young boughs down, their gold and russet blending,
         Made glad his heart, familiar odors lending

         To the fresh fragrance of the birch and pine,
         Life-everlasting, bay, and eglantine,
         And all the subtle scents the woods combine.

         Fair First-Day mornings, steeped in summer calm,
         Warm, tender, restful, sweet with woodland balm,
         Came to him, like some mother-hallowed psalm

         To the tired grinder at the noisy wheel
         Of labor, winding off from memory's reel
         A golden thread of music. With no peal

         Of bells to call them to the house of praise,
         The scattered settlers through green forest-ways
         Walked meeting-ward. In reverent amaze

         The Indian trapper saw them, from the dim
         Shade of the alders on the rivulet's rim,
         Seek the Great Spirit's house to talk with Him.

         There, through the gathered stillness multiplied
         And made intense by sympathy, outside
         The sparrows sang, and the gold-robin cried,

         A-swing upon his elm. A faint perfume
         Breathed through the open windows of the room
         From locust-trees, heavy with clustered bloom.

         Thither, perchance, sore-tried confessors came,
         Whose fervor jail nor pillory could tame,
         Proud of the cropped ears meant to be their shame,

         Men who had eaten slavery's bitter bread
         In Indian isles; pale women who had bled
         Under the hangman's lash, and bravely said

         God's message through their prison's iron bars;
         And gray old soldier-converts, seamed with scars
         From every stricken field of England's wars.

         Lowly before the Unseen Presence knelt
         Each waiting heart, till haply some one felt
         On his moved lips the seal of silence melt.

         Or, without spoken words, low breathings stole
         Of a diviner life from soul to soul,
         Baptizing in one tender thought the whole.

         When shaken hands announced the meeting o'er,
         The friendly group still lingered at the door,
         Greeting, inquiring, sharing all the store

         Of weekly tidings. Meanwhile youth and maid
         Down the green vistas of the woodland strayed,
         Whispered and smiled and oft their feet delayed.

         Did the boy's whistle answer back the thrushes?
         Did light girl laughter ripple through the bushes,
         As brooks make merry over roots and rushes?

         Unvexed the sweet air seemed. Without a wound
         The ear of silence heard, and every sound
         Its place in nature's fine accordance found.

         And solemn meeting, summer sky and wood,
         Old kindly faces, youth and maidenhood
         Seemed, like God's new creation, very good!

         And, greeting all with quiet smile and word,
         Pastorius went his way. The unscared bird
         Sang at his side; scarcely the squirrel stirred

         At his hushed footstep on the mossy sod;
         And, wheresoe'er the good man looked or trod,
         He felt the peace of nature and of God.

         His social life wore no ascetic form,
         He loved all beauty, without fear of harm,
         And in his veins his Teuton blood ran warm.

         Strict to himself, of other men no spy,
         He made his own no circuit-judge to try
         The freer conscience of his neighbors by.

         With love rebuking, by his life alone,
         Gracious and sweet, the better way was shown,
         The joy of one, who, seeking not his own,

         And faithful to all scruples, finds at last
         The thorns and shards of duty overpast,
         And daily life, beyond his hope's forecast,

         Pleasant and beautiful with sight and sound,
         And flowers upspringing in its narrow round,
         And all his days with quiet gladness crowned.

         He sang not; but, if sometimes tempted strong,
         He hummed what seemed like Altorf's Burschen-song;
         His good wife smiled, and did not count it wrong.

         For well he loved his boyhood's brother band;
         His Memory, while he trod the New World's strand,
         A double-ganger walked the Fatherland

         If, when on frosty Christmas eves the light
         Shone on his quiet hearth, he missed the sight
         Of Yule-log, Tree, and Christ-child all in white;

         And closed his eyes, and listened to the sweet
         Old wait-songs sounding down his native street,
         And watched again the dancers' mingling feet;

         Yet not the less, when once the vision passed,
         He held the plain and sober maxims fast
         Of the dear Friends with whom his lot was cast.

         Still all attuned to nature's melodies,
         He loved the bird's song in his dooryard trees,
         And the low hum of home-returning bees;

         The blossomed flax, the tulip-trees in bloom
         Down the long street, the beauty and perfume
         Of apple-boughs, the mingling light and gloom

         Of Sommerhausen's woodlands, woven through
         With sun—threads; and the music the wind drew,
         Mournful and sweet, from leaves it overblew.

         And evermore, beneath this outward sense,
         And through the common sequence of events,
         He felt the guiding hand of Providence

         Reach out of space. A Voice spake in his ear,
         And to all other voices far and near
         Died at that whisper, full of meanings clear.

         The Light of Life shone round him; one by one
         The wandering lights, that all-misleading run,
         Went out like candles paling in the sun.

         That Light he followed, step by step, where'er
         It led, as in the vision of the seer
         The wheels moved as the spirit in the clear

         And terrible crystal moved, with all their eyes
         Watching the living splendor sink or rise,
         Its will their will, knowing no otherwise.

         Within himself he found the law of right,
         He walked by faith and not the letter's sight,
         And read his Bible by the Inward Light.

         And if sometimes the slaves of form and rule,
         Frozen in their creeds like fish in winter's pool,
         Tried the large tolerance of his liberal school,

         His door was free to men of every name,
         He welcomed all the seeking souls who came,
         And no man's faith he made a cause of blame.

         But best he loved in leisure hours to see
         His own dear Friends sit by him knee to knee,
         In social converse, genial, frank, and free.

         There sometimes silence (it were hard to tell
         Who owned it first) upon the circle fell,
         Hushed Anna's busy wheel, and laid its spell

         On the black boy who grimaced by the hearth,
         To solemnize his shining face of mirth;
         Only the old clock ticked amidst the dearth

         Of sound; nor eye was raised nor hand was stirred
         In that soul-sabbath, till at last some word
         Of tender counsel or low prayer was heard.

         Then guests, who lingered but farewell to say
         And take love's message, went their homeward way;
         So passed in peace the guileless Quaker's day.

         His was the Christian's unsung Age of Gold,
         A truer idyl than the bards have told
         Of Arno's banks or Arcady of old.

         Where still the Friends their place of burial keep,
         And century-rooted mosses o'er it creep,
         The Nurnberg scholar and his helpmeet sleep.

         And Anna's aloe? If it flowered at last
         In Bartram's garden, did John Woolman cast
         A glance upon it as he meekly passed?

         And did a secret sympathy possess
         That tender soul, and for the slave's redress
         Lend hope, strength, patience? It were vain to
         guess.

         Nay, were the plant itself but mythical,
         Set in the fresco of tradition's wall
         Like Jotham's bramble, mattereth not at all.

         Enough to know that, through the winter's frost
         And summer's heat, no seed of truth is lost,
         And every duty pays at last its cost.

         For, ere Pastorius left the sun and air,
         God sent the answer to his life-long prayer;
         The child was born beside the Delaware,

         Who, in the power a holy purpose lends,
         Guided his people unto nobler ends,
         And left them worthier of the name of Friends.

         And to! the fulness of the time has come,
         And over all the exile's Western home,
         From sea to sea the flowers of freedom bloom!

         And joy-bells ring, and silver trumpets blow;
         But not for thee, Pastorius! Even so
         The world forgets, but the wise angels know.

## KING VOLMER AND ELSIE.

### AFTER THE DANISH OF CHRISTIAN WINTER.

         WHERE, over heathen doom-rings and gray stones
         of the Horg,
         In its little Christian city stands the church of
         Vordingborg,
         In merry mood King Volmer sat, forgetful of his
         power,
         As idle as the Goose of Gold that brooded on his
         tower.

         Out spake the King to Henrik, his young and faithful
         squire
         "Dar'st trust thy little Elsie, the maid of thy
         desire?"
         "Of all the men in Denmark she loveth only me
         As true to me is Elsie as thy Lily is to thee."

         Loud laughed the king: "To-morrow shall bring
         another day, (18)
         When I myself will test her; she will not say me
         nay."
         Thereat the lords and gallants, that round about
         him stood,
         Wagged all their heads in concert and smiled as
         courtiers should.

         The gray lark sings o'er Vordingborg, and on the
         ancient town
         From the tall tower of Valdemar the Golden Goose
         looks down;
         The yellow grain is waving in the pleasant wind of
         morn,
         The wood resounds with cry of hounds and blare
         of hunter's horn.

         In the garden of her father little Elsie sits and
         spins,
         And, singing with the early birds, her daily task,
         begins.
         Gay tulips bloom and sweet mint curls around her
         garden-bower,
         But she is sweeter than the mint and fairer than
         the flower.

         About her form her kirtle blue clings lovingly, and,
         white
         As snow, her loose sleeves only leave her small,
         round wrists in sight;
         Below, the modest petticoat can only half conceal
         The motion of the lightest foot that ever turned a
         wheel.

         The cat sits purring at her side, bees hum in
         sunshine warm;
         But, look! she starts, she lifts her face, she shades
         it with her arm.
         And, hark! a train of horsemen, with sound of
         dog and horn,
         Come leaping o'er the ditches, come trampling
         down the corn!

         Merrily rang the bridle-reins, and scarf and plume
         streamed gay,
         As fast beside her father's gate the riders held
         their way;
         And one was brave in scarlet cloak, with golden
         spur on heel,
         And, as he checked his foaming steed, the maiden
         checked her wheel.

         "All hail among thy roses, the fairest rose to me!
         For weary months in secret my heart has longed for
         thee!"
         What noble knight was this? What words for
         modest maiden's ear?
         She dropped a lowly courtesy of bashfulness and
         fear.

         She lifted up her spinning-wheel; she fain would
         seek the door,
         Trembling in every limb, her cheek with blushes
         crimsoned o'er.
         "Nay, fear me not," the rider said, "I offer heart
         and hand,
         Bear witness these good Danish knights who round
         about me stand.

         "I grant you time to think of this, to answer as
         you may,
         For to-morrow, little Elsie, shall bring another day."
         He spake the old phrase slyly as, glancing round
         his train,
         He saw his merry followers seek to hide their
         smiles in vain.

         "The snow of pearls I'll scatter in your curls of
         golden hair,
         I'll line with furs the velvet of the kirtle that you
         wear;
         All precious gems shall twine your neck; and in
         a chariot gay
         You shall ride, my little Elsie, behind four steeds
         of gray.

         "And harps shall sound, and flutes shall play, and
         brazen lamps shall glow;
         On marble floors your feet shall weave the dances
         to and fro.
         At frosty eventide for us the blazing hearth shall
         shine,
         While, at our ease, we play at draughts, and drink
         the blood-red wine."

         Then Elsie raised her head and met her wooer face
         to face;
         A roguish smile shone in her eye and on her lip
         found place.
         Back from her low white forehead the curls of
         gold she threw,
         And lifted up her eyes to his, steady and clear and
         blue.

         "I am a lowly peasant, and you a gallant knight;
         I will not trust a love that soon may cool and turn
         to slight.
         If you would wed me henceforth be a peasant, not
         a lord;
         I bid you hang upon the wall your tried and trusty
         sword."

         "To please you, Elsie, I will lay keen Dynadel
         away,
         And in its place will swing the scythe and mow
         your father's hay."
         "Nay, but your gallant scarlet cloak my eyes can
         never bear;
         A Vadmal coat, so plain and gray, is all that you
         must wear."

         "Well, Vadmal will I wear for you," the rider
         gayly spoke,
         "And on the Lord's high altar I'll lay my scarlet
         cloak."
         "But mark," she said, "no stately horse my peasant
         love must ride,
         A yoke of steers before the plough is all that he
         must guide."

         The knight looked down upon his steed: "Well,
         let him wander free
         No other man must ride the horse that has been
         backed by me.
         Henceforth I'll tread the furrow and to my oxen
         talk,
         If only little Elsie beside my plough will walk."

         "You must take from out your cellar cask of wine
         and flask and can;
         The homely mead I brew you may serve a peasant.
         man."
         "Most willingly, fair Elsie, I'll drink that mead
         of thine,
         And leave my minstrel's thirsty throat to drain
         my generous wine."

         "Now break your shield asunder, and shatter sign
         and boss,
         Unmeet for peasant-wedded arms, your knightly
         knee across.
         And pull me down your castle from top to basement
         wall,
         And let your plough trace furrows in the ruins of
         your hall!"

         Then smiled he with a lofty pride; right well at
         last he knew
         The maiden of the spinning-wheel was to her troth.
         plight true.
         "Ah, roguish little Elsie! you act your part full
         well
         You know that I must bear my shield and in my
         castle dwell!

         "The lions ramping on that shield between the
         hearts aflame
         Keep watch o'er Denmark's honor, and guard her
         ancient name.

         "For know that I am Volmer; I dwell in yonder
         towers,
         Who ploughs them ploughs up Denmark, this
         goodly home of ours'.

         "I tempt no more, fair Elsie! your heart I know
         is true;
         Would God that all our maidens were good and
         pure as you!
         Well have you pleased your monarch, and he shall
         well repay;
         God's peace! Farewell! To-morrow will bring
         another day!"

         He lifted up his bridle hand, he spurred his good
         steed then,
         And like a whirl-blast swept away with all his
         gallant men.
         The steel hoofs beat the rocky path; again on
         winds of morn
         The wood resounds with cry of hounds and blare
         of hunter's horn.

         "Thou true and ever faithful!" the listening
         Henrik cried;
         And, leaping o'er the green hedge, he stood by
         Elsie's side.
         None saw the fond embracing, save, shining from
         afar,
         The Golden Goose that watched them from the
         tower of Valdemar.

         O darling girls of Denmark! of all the flowers
         that throng
         Her vales of spring the fairest, I sing for you my
         song.
         No praise as yours so bravely rewards the singer's
         skill;
         Thank God! of maids like Elsie the land has
         plenty still!

         1872.

## THE THREE BELLS.

         BENEATH the low-hung night cloud
         That raked her splintering mast
         The good ship settled slowly,
         The cruel leak gained fast.

         Over the awful ocean
         Her signal guns pealed out.
         Dear God! was that Thy answer
         From the horror round about?

         A voice came down the wild wind,
         "Ho! ship ahoy!" its cry
         "Our stout Three Bells of Glasgow
         Shall lay till daylight by!"

         Hour after hour crept slowly,
         Yet on the heaving swells
         Tossed up and down the ship-lights,
         The lights of the Three Bells!

         And ship to ship made signals,
         Man answered back to man,
         While oft, to cheer and hearten,
         The Three Bells nearer ran;

         And the captain from her taffrail
         Sent down his hopeful cry
         "Take heart! Hold on!" he shouted;
         "The Three Bells shall lay by!"

         All night across the waters
         The tossing lights shone clear;
         All night from reeling taffrail
         The Three Bells sent her cheer.

         And when the dreary watches
         Of storm and darkness passed,
         Just as the wreck lurched under,
         All souls were saved at last.

         Sail on, Three Bells, forever,
         In grateful memory sail!
         Ring on, Three Bells of rescue,
         Above the wave and gale!

         Type of the Love eternal,
         Repeat the Master's cry,
         As tossing through our darkness
         The lights of God draw nigh!

         1872.

## JOHN UNDERHILL.

         A SCORE of years had come and gone
         Since the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth stone,
         When Captain Underhill, bearing scars
         From Indian ambush and Flemish wars,
         Left three-hilled Boston and wandered down,
         East by north, to Cocheco town.

         With Vane the younger, in counsel sweet,
         He had sat at Anna Hutchinson's feet,
         And, when the bolt of banishment fell
         On the head of his saintly oracle,
         He had shared her ill as her good report,
         And braved the wrath of the General Court.

         He shook from his feet as he rode away
         The dust of the Massachusetts Bay.
         The world might bless and the world might ban,
         What did it matter the perfect man,
         To whom the freedom of earth was given,
         Proof against sin, and sure of heaven?

         He cheered his heart as he rode along
         With screed of Scripture and holy song,
         Or thought how he rode with his lances free
         By the Lower Rhine and the Zuyder-Zee,
         Till his wood-path grew to a trodden road,
         And Hilton Point in the distance showed.

         He saw the church with the block-house nigh,
         The two fair rivers, the flakes thereby,
         And, tacking to windward, low and crank,
         The little shallop from Strawberry Bank;
         And he rose in his stirrups and looked abroad
         Over land and water, and praised the Lord.

         Goodly and stately and grave to see,
         Into the clearing's space rode he,
         With the sun on the hilt of his sword in sheath,
         And his silver buckles and spurs beneath,
         And the settlers welcomed him, one and all,
         From swift Quampeagan to Gonic Fall.

         And he said to the elders: "Lo, I come
         As the way seemed open to seek a home.
         Somewhat the Lord hath wrought by my hands
         In the Narragansett and Netherlands,
         And if here ye have work for a Christian man,
         I will tarry, and serve ye as best I can.

         "I boast not of gifts, but fain would own
         The wonderful favor God hath shown,
         The special mercy vouchsafed one day
         On the shore of Narragansett Bay,
         As I sat, with my pipe, from the camp aside,
         And mused like Isaac at eventide.

         "A sudden sweetness of peace I found,
         A garment of gladness wrapped me round;
         I felt from the law of works released,
         The strife of the flesh and spirit ceased,
         My faith to a full assurance grew,
         And all I had hoped for myself I knew.

         "Now, as God appointeth, I keep my way,
         I shall not stumble, I shall not stray;
         He hath taken away my fig-leaf dress,
         I wear the robe of His righteousness;
         And the shafts of Satan no more avail
         Than Pequot arrows on Christian mail."

         "Tarry with us," the settlers cried,
         "Thou man of God, as our ruler and guide."
         And Captain Underhill bowed his head.
         "The will of the Lord be done!" he said.
         And the morrow beheld him sitting down
         In the ruler's seat in Cocheco town.

         And he judged therein as a just man should;
         His words were wise and his rule was good;
         He coveted not his neighbor's land,
         From the holding of bribes he shook his hand;
         And through the camps of the heathen ran
         A wholesome fear of the valiant man.

         But the heart is deceitful, the good Book saith,
         And life hath ever a savor of death.
         Through hymns of triumph the tempter calls,
         And whoso thinketh he standeth falls.
         Alas! ere their round the seasons ran,
         There was grief in the soul of the saintly man.

         The tempter's arrows that rarely fail
         Had found the joints of his spiritual mail;
         And men took note of his gloomy air,
         The shame in his eye, the halt in his prayer,
         The signs of a battle lost within,
         The pain of a soul in the coils of sin.

         Then a whisper of scandal linked his name
         With broken vows and a life of blame;
         And the people looked askance on him
         As he walked among them sullen and grim,
         Ill at ease, and bitter of word,
         And prompt of quarrel with hand or sword.

         None knew how, with prayer and fasting still,
         He strove in the bonds of his evil will;
         But he shook himself like Samson at length,
         And girded anew his loins of strength,
         And bade the crier go up and down
         And call together the wondering town.

         Jeer and murmur and shaking of head
         Ceased as he rose in his place and said
         "Men, brethren, and fathers, well ye know
         How I came among you a year ago,
         Strong in the faith that my soul was freed
         From sin of feeling, or thought, or deed.

         "I have sinned, I own it with grief and shame,
         But not with a lie on my lips I came.
         In my blindness I verily thought my heart
         Swept and garnished in every part.
         He chargeth His angels with folly; He sees
         The heavens unclean. Was I more than these?

         "I urge no plea. At your feet I lay
         The trust you gave me, and go my way.
         Hate me or pity me, as you will,
         The Lord will have mercy on sinners still;
         And I, who am chiefest, say to all,
         Watch and pray, lest ye also fall."

         No voice made answer: a sob so low
         That only his quickened ear could know
         Smote his heart with a bitter pain,
         As into the forest he rode again,
         And the veil of its oaken leaves shut down
         On his latest glimpse of Cocheco town.

         Crystal-clear on the man of sin
         The streams flashed up, and the sky shone in;
         On his cheek of fever the cool wind blew,
         The leaves dropped on him their tears of dew,
         And angels of God, in the pure, sweet guise
         Of flowers, looked on him with sad surprise.

         Was his ear at fault that brook and breeze
         Sang in their saddest of minor keys?
         What was it the mournful wood-thrush said?
         What whispered the pine-trees overhead?
         Did he hear the Voice on his lonely way
         That Adam heard in the cool of day?

         Into the desert alone rode he,
         Alone with the Infinite Purity;
         And, bowing his soul to its tender rebuke,
         As Peter did to the Master's look,
         He measured his path with prayers of pain
         For peace with God and nature again.

         And in after years to Cocheco came
         The bruit of a once familiar name;
         How among the Dutch of New Netherlands,
         From wild Danskamer to Haarlem sands,
         A penitent soldier preached the Word,
         And smote the heathen with Gideon's sword!

         And the heart of Boston was glad to hear
         How he harried the foe on the long frontier,
         And heaped on the land against him barred
         The coals of his generous watch and ward.
         Frailest and bravest! the Bay State still
         Counts with her worthies John Underhill.

         1873.

## CONDUCTOR BRADLEY.

A railway conductor who lost his life in an accident on a Connecticut railway, May 9, 1873.

         CONDUCTOR BRADLEY, (always may his name
         Be said with reverence!) as the swift doom came,
         Smitten to death, a crushed and mangled frame,

         Sank, with the brake he grasped just where he stood
         To do the utmost that a brave man could,
         And die, if needful, as a true man should.

         Men stooped above him; women dropped their tears
         On that poor wreck beyond all hopes or fears,
         Lost in the strength and glory of his years.

         What heard they? Lo! the ghastly lips of pain,
         Dead to all thought save duty's, moved again
         "Put out the signals for the other train!"

         No nobler utterance since the world began
         From lips of saint or martyr ever ran,
         Electric, through the sympathies of man.

         Ah me! how poor and noteless seem to this
         The sick-bed dramas of self-consciousness,
         Our sensual fears of pain and hopes of bliss!

         Oh, grand, supreme endeavor! Not in vain
         That last brave act of failing tongue and brain
         Freighted with life the downward rushing train,

         Following the wrecked one, as wave follows wave,
         Obeyed the warning which the dead lips gave.
         Others he saved, himself he could not save.

         Nay, the lost life was saved. He is not dead
         Who in his record still the earth shall tread
         With God's clear aureole shining round his head.

         We bow as in the dust, with all our pride
         Of virtue dwarfed the noble deed beside.
         God give us grace to live as Bradley died!

         1873.

## THE WITCH OF WENHAM.

The house is still standing in Danvers, Mass., where, it is said, a suspected witch was confined overnight in the attic, which was bolted fast. In the morning when the constable came to take her to Salem for trial she was missing, although the door was still bolted. Her escape was doubtless aided by her friends, but at the time it was attributed to Satanic interference.

         I.

         ALONG Crane River's sunny slopes
         Blew warm the winds of May,
         And over Naumkeag's ancient oaks
         The green outgrew the gray.

         The grass was green on Rial-side,
         The early birds at will
         Waked up the violet in its dell,
         The wind-flower on its hill.

         "Where go you, in your Sunday coat,
         Son Andrew, tell me, pray."
         For striped perch in Wenham Lake
         I go to fish to-day."

         "Unharmed of thee in Wenham Lake
         The mottled perch shall be
         A blue-eyed witch sits on the bank
         And weaves her net for thee.

         "She weaves her golden hair; she sings
         Her spell-song low and faint;
         The wickedest witch in Salem jail
         Is to that girl a saint."

         "Nay, mother, hold thy cruel tongue;
         God knows," the young man cried,
         "He never made a whiter soul
         Than hers by Wenham side.

         "She tends her mother sick and blind,
         And every want supplies;
         To her above the blessed Book
         She lends her soft blue eyes.

         "Her voice is glad with holy songs,
         Her lips are sweet with prayer;
         Go where you will, in ten miles round
         Is none more good and fair."

         "Son Andrew, for the love of God
         And of thy mother, stay!"
         She clasped her hands, she wept aloud,
         But Andrew rode away.

         "O reverend sir, my Andrew's soul
         The Wenham witch has caught;
         She holds him with the curled gold
         Whereof her snare is wrought.

         "She charms him with her great blue eyes,
         She binds him with her hair;
         Oh, break the spell with holy words,
         Unbind him with a prayer!"

         "Take heart," the painful preacher said,
         "This mischief shall not be;
         The witch shall perish in her sins
         And Andrew shall go free.

         "Our poor Ann Putnam testifies
         She saw her weave a spell,
         Bare-armed, loose-haired, at full of moon,
         Around a dried-up well.

         "'Spring up, O well!' she softly sang
         The Hebrew's old refrain
         (For Satan uses Bible words),
         Till water flowed a-main.

         "And many a goodwife heard her speak
         By Wenham water words
         That made the buttercups take wings
         And turn to yellow birds.

         "They say that swarming wild bees seek
         The hive at her command;
         And fishes swim to take their food
         From out her dainty hand.

         "Meek as she sits in meeting-time,
         The godly minister
         Notes well the spell that doth compel
         The young men's eyes to her.

         "The mole upon her dimpled chin
         Is Satan's seal and sign;
         Her lips are red with evil bread
         And stain of unblest wine.

         "For Tituba, my Indian, saith
         At Quasycung she took
         The Black Man's godless sacrament
         And signed his dreadful book.

         "Last night my sore-afflicted child
         Against the young witch cried.
         To take her Marshal Herrick rides
         Even now to Wenham side."

         The marshal in his saddle sat,
         His daughter at his knee;
         "I go to fetch that arrant witch,
         Thy fair playmate," quoth he.

         "Her spectre walks the parsonage,
         And haunts both hall and stair;
         They know her by the great blue eyes
         And floating gold of hair."

         "They lie, they lie, my father dear!
         No foul old witch is she,
         But sweet and good and crystal-pure
         As Wenham waters be."

         "I tell thee, child, the Lord hath set
         Before us good and ill,
         And woe to all whose carnal loves
         Oppose His righteous will.

         "Between Him and the powers of hell
         Choose thou, my child, to-day
         No sparing hand, no pitying eye,
         When God commands to slay!"

         He went his way; the old wives shook
         With fear as he drew nigh;
         The children in the dooryards held
         Their breath as he passed by.

         Too well they knew the gaunt gray horse
         The grim witch-hunter rode
         The pale Apocalyptic beast
         By grisly Death bestrode.

         II.

         Oh, fair the face of Wenham Lake
         Upon the young girl's shone,
         Her tender mouth, her dreaming eyes,
         Her yellow hair outblown.

         By happy youth and love attuned
         To natural harmonies,
         The singing birds, the whispering wind,
         She sat beneath the trees.

         Sat shaping for her bridal dress
         Her mother's wedding gown,
         When lo! the marshal, writ in hand,
         From Alford hill rode down.

         His face was hard with cruel fear,
         He grasped the maiden's hands
         "Come with me unto Salem town,
         For so the law commands!"

         "Oh, let me to my mother say
         Farewell before I go!"
         He closer tied her little hands
         Unto his saddle bow.

         "Unhand me," cried she piteously,
         "For thy sweet daughter's sake."
         "I'll keep my daughter safe," he said,
         "From the witch of Wenham Lake."

         "Oh, leave me for my mother's sake,
         She needs my eyes to see."
         "Those eyes, young witch, the crows shall peck
         From off the gallows-tree."

         He bore her to a farm-house old,
         And up its stairway long,
         And closed on her the garret-door
         With iron bolted strong.

         The day died out, the night came down
         Her evening prayer she said,
         While, through the dark, strange faces seemed
         To mock her as she prayed.

         The present horror deepened all
         The fears her childhood knew;
         The awe wherewith the air was filled
         With every breath she drew.

         And could it be, she trembling asked,
         Some secret thought or sin
         Had shut good angels from her heart
         And let the bad ones in?

         Had she in some forgotten dream
         Let go her hold on Heaven,
         And sold herself unwittingly
         To spirits unforgiven?

         Oh, weird and still the dark hours passed;
         No human sound she heard,
         But up and down the chimney stack
         The swallows moaned and stirred.

         And o'er her, with a dread surmise
         Of evil sight and sound,
         The blind bats on their leathern wings
         Went wheeling round and round.

         Low hanging in the midnight sky
         Looked in a half-faced moon.
         Was it a dream, or did she hear
         Her lover's whistled tune?

         She forced the oaken scuttle back;
         A whisper reached her ear
         "Slide down the roof to me," it said,
         "So softly none may hear."

         She slid along the sloping roof
         Till from its eaves she hung,
         And felt the loosened shingles yield
         To which her fingers clung.

         Below, her lover stretched his hands
         And touched her feet so small;
         "Drop down to me, dear heart," he said,
         "My arms shall break the fall."

         He set her on his pillion soft,
         Her arms about him twined;
         And, noiseless as if velvet-shod,
         They left the house behind.

         But when they reached the open way,
         Full free the rein he cast;
         Oh, never through the mirk midnight
         Rode man and maid more fast.

         Along the wild wood-paths they sped,
         The bridgeless streams they swam;
         At set of moon they passed the Bass,
         At sunrise Agawam.

         At high noon on the Merrimac
         The ancient ferryman
         Forgot, at times, his idle oars,
         So fair a freight to scan.

         And when from off his grounded boat
         He saw them mount and ride,
         "God keep her from the evil eye,
         And harm of witch!" he cried.

         The maiden laughed, as youth will laugh
         At all its fears gone by;
         "He does not know," she whispered low,
         "A little witch am I."

         All day he urged his weary horse,
         And, in the red sundown,
         Drew rein before a friendly door
         In distant Berwick town.

         A fellow-feeling for the wronged
         The Quaker people felt;
         And safe beside their kindly hearths
         The hunted maiden dwelt,

         Until from off its breast the land
         The haunting horror threw,
         And hatred, born of ghastly dreams,
         To shame and pity grew.

         Sad were the year's spring morns, and sad
         Its golden summer day,
         But blithe and glad its withered fields,
         And skies of ashen gray;

         For spell and charm had power no more,
         The spectres ceased to roam,
         And scattered households knelt again
         Around the hearths of home.

         And when once more by Beaver Dam
         The meadow-lark outsang,
         And once again on all the hills
         The early violets sprang,

         And all the windy pasture slopes
         Lay green within the arms
         Of creeks that bore the salted sea
         To pleasant inland farms,

         The smith filed off the chains he forged,
         The jail-bolts backward fell;
         And youth and hoary age came forth
         Like souls escaped from hell.

         1877

## KING SOLOMON AND THE ANTS

         OUT from Jerusalem
         The king rode with his great
         War chiefs and lords of state,
         And Sheba's queen with them;

         Comely, but black withal,
         To whom, perchance, belongs
         That wondrous Song of songs,
         Sensuous and mystical,

         Whereto devout souls turn
         In fond, ecstatic dream,
         And through its earth-born theme
         The Love of loves discern.

         Proud in the Syrian sun,
         In gold and purple sheen,
         The dusky Ethiop queen
         Smiled on King Solomon.

         Wisest of men, he knew
         The languages of all
         The creatures great or small
         That trod the earth or flew.

         Across an ant-hill led
         The king's path, and he heard
         Its small folk, and their word
         He thus interpreted:

         "Here comes the king men greet
         As wise and good and just,
         To crush us in the dust
         Under his heedless feet."

         The great king bowed his head,
         And saw the wide surprise
         Of the Queen of Sheba's eyes
         As he told her what they said.

         "O king!" she whispered sweet,
         "Too happy fate have they
         Who perish in thy way
         Beneath thy gracious feet!

         "Thou of the God-lent crown,
         Shall these vile creatures dare
         Murmur against thee where
         The knees of kings kneel down?"

         "Nay," Solomon replied,
         "The wise and strong should seek
         The welfare of the weak,"
         And turned his horse aside.

         His train, with quick alarm,
         Curved with their leader round
         The ant-hill's peopled mound,
         And left it free from harm.

         The jewelled head bent low;
         "O king!" she said, "henceforth
         The secret of thy worth
         And wisdom well I know.

         "Happy must be the State
         Whose ruler heedeth more
         The murmurs of the poor
         Than flatteries of the great."

         1877.

## IN THE "OLD SOUTH."

On the 8th of July, 1677, Margaret Brewster with four other Friends went into the South Church in time of meeting, "in sack-cloth, with ashes upon her head, barefoot, and her face blackened," and delivered "a warning from the great God of Heaven and Earth to the Rulers and Magistrates of Boston." For the offence she was sentenced to be "whipped at a cart's tail up and down the Town, with twenty lashes."

         SHE came and stood in the Old South Church,
         A wonder and a sign,
         With a look the old-time sibyls wore,
         Half-crazed and half-divine.

         Save the mournful sackcloth about her wound,
         Unclothed as the primal mother,
         With limbs that trembled and eyes that blazed
         With a fire she dare not smother.

         Loose on her shoulders fell her hair,
         With sprinkled ashes gray;
         She stood in the broad aisle strange and weird
         As a soul at the judgment day.

         And the minister paused in his sermon's midst,
         And the people held their breath,
         For these were the words the maiden spoke
         Through lips as the lips of death:

         "Thus saith the Lord, with equal feet
         All men my courts shall tread,
         And priest and ruler no more shall eat
         My people up like bread!

         "Repent! repent! ere the Lord shall speak
         In thunder and breaking seals
         Let all souls worship Him in the way
         His light within reveals."

         She shook the dust from her naked feet,
         And her sackcloth closer drew,
         And into the porch of the awe-hushed church
         She passed like a ghost from view.

         They whipped her away at the tail o' the cart
         Through half the streets of the town,
         But the words she uttered that day nor fire
         Could burn nor water drown.

         And now the aisles of the ancient church
         By equal feet are trod,
         And the bell that swings in its belfry rings
         Freedom to worship God!

         And now whenever a wrong is done
         It thrills the conscious walls;
         The stone from the basement cries aloud
         And the beam from the timber calls.

         There are steeple-houses on every hand,
         And pulpits that bless and ban,
         And the Lord will not grudge the single church
         That is set apart for man.

         For in two commandments are all the law
         And the prophets under the sun,
         And the first is last and the last is first,
         And the twain are verily one.

         So, long as Boston shall Boston be,
         And her bay-tides rise and fall,
         Shall freedom stand in the Old South Church
         And plead for the rights of all!

         1877.

## THE HENCHMAN.

         MY lady walks her morning round,
         My lady's page her fleet greyhound,
         My lady's hair the fond winds stir,
         And all the birds make songs for her.

         Her thrushes sing in Rathburn bowers,
         And Rathburn side is gay with flowers;
         But ne'er like hers, in flower or bird,
         Was beauty seen or music heard.

         The distance of the stars is hers;
         The least of all her worshippers,
         The dust beneath her dainty heel,
         She knows not that I see or feel.

         Oh, proud and calm!—she cannot know
         Where'er she goes with her I go;
         Oh, cold and fair!—she cannot guess
         I kneel to share her hound's caress!

         Gay knights beside her hunt and hawk,
         I rob their ears of her sweet talk;
         Her suitors come from east and west,
         I steal her smiles from every guest.

         Unheard of her, in loving words,
         I greet her with the song of birds;
         I reach her with her green-armed bowers,
         I kiss her with the lips of flowers.

         The hound and I are on her trail,
         The wind and I uplift her veil;
         As if the calm, cold moon she were,
         And I the tide, I follow her.

         As unrebuked as they, I share
         The license of the sun and air,
         And in a common homage hide
         My worship from her scorn and pride.

         World-wide apart, and yet so near,
         I breathe her charmed atmosphere,
         Wherein to her my service brings
         The reverence due to holy things.

         Her maiden pride, her haughty name,
         My dumb devotion shall not shame;
         The love that no return doth crave
         To knightly levels lifts the slave,

         No lance have I, in joust or fight,
         To splinter in my lady's sight
         But, at her feet, how blest were I
         For any need of hers to die!

         1877.

## THE DEAD FEAST OF THE KOL-FOLK.

E. B. Tylor in his Primitive Culture, chapter xii., gives an account of the reverence paid the dead by the Kol tribes of Chota Nagpur, Assam. "When a Ho or Munda," he says, "has been burned on the funeral pile, collected morsels of his bones are carried in procession with a solemn, ghostly, sliding step, keeping time to the deep-sounding drum, and when the old woman who carries the bones on her bamboo tray lowers it from time to time, then girls who carry pitchers and brass vessels mournfully reverse them to show that they are empty; thus the remains are taken to visit every house in the village, and every dwelling of a friend or relative for miles, and the inmates come out to mourn and praise the goodness of the departed; the bones are carried to all the dead man's favorite haunts, to the fields he cultivated, to the grove he planted, to the threshing-floor where he worked, to the village dance-room where he made merry. At last they are taken to the grave, and buried in an earthen vase upon a store of food, covered with one of those huge stone slabs which European visitors wonder at in the districts of the aborigines of India." In the Journal of the Asiatic Society, Bengal, vol. ix., p. 795, is a Ho dirge.

         WE have opened the door,
         Once, twice, thrice!
         We have swept the floor,
         We have boiled the rice.
         Come hither, come hither!
         Come from the far lands,
         Come from the star lands,
         Come as before!
         We lived long together,
         We loved one another;
         Come back to our life.
         Come father, come mother,
         Come sister and brother,
         Child, husband, and wife,
         For you we are sighing.
         Come take your old places,
         Come look in our faces,
         The dead on the dying,
         Come home!

         We have opened the door,
         Once, twice, thrice!
         We have kindled the coals,
         And we boil the rice
         For the feast of souls.
         Come hither, come hither!
         Think not we fear you,
         Whose hearts are so near you.
         Come tenderly thought on,
         Come all unforgotten,
         Come from the shadow-lands,
         From the dim meadow-lands
         Where the pale grasses bend
         Low to our sighing.
         Come father, come mother,
         Come sister and brother,
         Come husband and friend,
         The dead to the dying,
         Come home!

         We have opened the door
         You entered so oft;
         For the feast of souls
         We have kindled the coals,
         And we boil the rice soft.
         Come you who are dearest
         To us who are nearest,
         Come hither, come hither,
         From out the wild weather;
         The storm clouds are flying,
         The peepul is sighing;
         Come in from the rain.
         Come father, come mother,
         Come sister and brother,
         Come husband and lover,
         Beneath our roof-cover.
         Look on us again,
         The dead on the dying,
         Come home!

         We have opened the door!
         For the feast of souls
         We have kindled the coals
         We may kindle no more!
         Snake, fever, and famine,
         The curse of the Brahmin,
         The sun and the dew,
         They burn us, they bite us,
         They waste us and smite us;
         Our days are but few
         In strange lands far yonder
         To wonder and wander
         We hasten to you.
         List then to our sighing,
         While yet we are here
         Nor seeing nor hearing,
         We wait without fearing,
         To feel you draw near.
         O dead, to the dying
         Come home!

         1879.

## THE KHAN'S DEVIL.

         THE Khan came from Bokhara town
         To Hamza, santon of renown.

         "My head is sick, my hands are weak;
         Thy help, O holy man, I seek."

         In silence marking for a space
         The Khan's red eyes and purple face,

         Thick voice, and loose, uncertain tread,
         "Thou hast a devil!" Hamza said.

         "Allah forbid!" exclaimed the Khan.
         Rid me of him at once, O man!"

         "Nay," Hamza said, "no spell of mine
         Can slay that cursed thing of thine.

         "Leave feast and wine, go forth and drink
         Water of healing on the brink

         "Where clear and cold from mountain snows,
         The Nahr el Zeben downward flows.

         "Six moons remain, then come to me;
         May Allah's pity go with thee!"

         Awestruck, from feast and wine the Khan
         Went forth where Nahr el Zeben ran.

         Roots were his food, the desert dust
         His bed, the water quenched his thirst;

         And when the sixth moon's scimetar
         Curved sharp above the evening star,

         He sought again the santon's door,
         Not weak and trembling as before,

         But strong of limb and clear of brain;
         "Behold," he said, "the fiend is slain."

         "Nay," Hamza answered, "starved and drowned,
         The curst one lies in death-like swound.

         "But evil breaks the strongest gyves,
         And jins like him have charmed lives.

         "One beaker of the juice of grape
         May call him up in living shape.

         "When the red wine of Badakshan
         Sparkles for thee, beware, O Khan,

         "With water quench the fire within,
         And drown each day thy devilkin!"

         Thenceforth the great Khan shunned the cup
         As Shitan's own, though offered up,

         With laughing eyes and jewelled hands,
         By Yarkand's maids and Samarcand's.

         And, in the lofty vestibule
         Of the medress of Kaush Kodul,

         The students of the holy law
         A golden-lettered tablet saw,

         With these words, by a cunning hand,
         Graved on it at the Khan's command:

         "In Allah's name, to him who hath
         A devil, Khan el Hamed saith,

         "Wisely our Prophet cursed the vine
         The fiend that loves the breath of wine,

         "No prayer can slay, no marabout
         Nor Meccan dervis can drive out.

         "I, Khan el Hamed, know the charm
         That robs him of his power to harm.

         "Drown him, O Islam's child! the spell
         To save thee lies in tank and well!"

         1879.

## THE KING'S MISSIVE.

### 1661.

This ballad, originally written for The Memorial History of Boston, describes, with pardonable poetic license, a memorable incident in the annals of the city. The interview between Shattuck and the Governor took place, I have since learned, in the residence of the latter, and not in the Council Chamber. The publication of the ballad led to some discussion as to the historical truthfulness of the picture, but I have seen no reason to rub out any of the figures or alter the lines and colors.

          UNDER the great hill sloping bare
          To cove and meadow and Common lot,
          In his council chamber and oaken chair,
          Sat the worshipful Governor Endicott.
          A grave, strong man, who knew no peer
          In the pilgrim land, where he ruled in fear
          Of God, not man, and for good or ill
          Held his trust with an iron will.

          He had shorn with his sword the cross from out
          The flag, and cloven the May-pole down,
          Harried the heathen round about,
          And whipped the Quakers from town to town.
          Earnest and honest, a man at need
          To burn like a torch for his own harsh creed,
          He kept with the flaming brand of his zeal
          The gate of the holy common weal.

          His brow was clouded, his eye was stern,
          With a look of mingled sorrow and wrath;
          "Woe's me!" he murmured: "at every turn
          The pestilent Quakers are in my path!
          Some we have scourged, and banished some,
          Some hanged, more doomed, and still they come,
          Fast as the tide of yon bay sets in,
          Sowing their heresy's seed of sin.

          "Did we count on this? Did we leave behind
          The graves of our kin, the comfort and ease
          Of our English hearths and homes, to find
          Troublers of Israel such as these?
          Shall I spare? Shall I pity them? God forbid!
          I will do as the prophet to Agag did
          They come to poison the wells of the Word,
          I will hew them in pieces before the Lord!"

          The door swung open, and Rawson the clerk
          Entered, and whispered under breath,
          "There waits below for the hangman's work
          A fellow banished on pain of death—
          Shattuck, of Salem, unhealed of the whip,
          Brought over in Master Goldsmith's ship
          At anchor here in a Christian port,
          With freight of the devil and all his sort!"

          Twice and thrice on the chamber floor
          Striding fiercely from wall to wall,
          "The Lord do so to me and more,"
          The Governor cried, "if I hang not all!
          Bring hither the Quaker." Calm, sedate,
          With the look of a man at ease with fate,
          Into that presence grim and dread
          Came Samuel Shattuck, with hat on head.

          "Off with the knave's hat!" An angry hand
          Smote down the offence; but the wearer said,
          With a quiet smile, "By the king's command
          I bear his message and stand in his stead."
          In the Governor's hand a missive he laid
          With the royal arms on its seal displayed,
          And the proud man spake as he gazed thereat,
          Uncovering, "Give Mr. Shattuck his hat."

          He turned to the Quaker, bowing low,—
          "The king commandeth your friends' release;
          Doubt not he shall be obeyed, although
          To his subjects' sorrow and sin's increase.
          What he here enjoineth, John Endicott,
          His loyal servant, questioneth not.
          You are free! God grant the spirit you own
          May take you from us to parts unknown."

          So the door of the jail was open cast,
          And, like Daniel, out of the lion's den
          Tender youth and girlhood passed,
          With age-bowed women and gray-locked men.
          And the voice of one appointed to die
          Was lifted in praise and thanks on high,
          And the little maid from New Netherlands
          Kissed, in her joy, the doomed man's hands.

          And one, whose call was to minister
          To the souls in prison, beside him went,
          An ancient woman, bearing with her
          The linen shroud for his burial meant.
          For she, not counting her own life dear,
          In the strength of a love that cast out fear,
          Had watched and served where her brethren died,
          Like those who waited the cross beside.

          One moment they paused on their way to look
          On the martyr graves by the Common side,
          And much scourged Wharton of Salem took
          His burden of prophecy up and cried
          "Rest, souls of the valiant! Not in vain
          Have ye borne the Master's cross of pain;
          Ye have fought the fight, ye are victors crowned,
          With a fourfold chain ye have Satan bound!"

          The autumn haze lay soft and still
          On wood and meadow and upland farms;
          On the brow of Snow Hill the great windmill
          Slowly and lazily swung its arms;
          Broad in the sunshine stretched away,
          With its capes and islands, the turquoise bay;
          And over water and dusk of pines
          Blue hills lifted their faint outlines.

          The topaz leaves of the walnut glowed,
          The sumach added its crimson fleck,
          And double in air and water showed
          The tinted maples along the Neck;
          Through frost flower clusters of pale star-mist,
          And gentian fringes of amethyst,
          And royal plumes of golden-rod,
          The grazing cattle on Centry trod.

          But as they who see not, the Quakers saw
          The world about them; they only thought
          With deep thanksgiving and pious awe
          On the great deliverance God had wrought.
          Through lane and alley the gazing town
          Noisily followed them up and down;
          Some with scoffing and brutal jeer,
          Some with pity and words of cheer.

          One brave voice rose above the din.
          Upsall, gray with his length of days,
          Cried from the door of his Red Lion Inn
          "Men of Boston, give God the praise
          No more shall innocent blood call down
          The bolts of wrath on your guilty town.
          The freedom of worship, dear to you,
          Is dear to all, and to all is due.

          "I see the vision of days to come,
          When your beautiful City of the Bay
          Shall be Christian liberty's chosen home,
          And none shall his neighbor's rights gainsay.
          The varying notes of worship shall blend
          And as one great prayer to God ascend,
          And hands of mutual charity raise
          Walls of salvation and gates of praise."

          So passed the Quakers through Boston town,
          Whose painful ministers sighed to see
          The walls of their sheep-fold falling down,
          And wolves of heresy prowling free.
          But the years went on, and brought no wrong;
          With milder counsels the State grew strong,
          As outward Letter and inward Light
          Kept the balance of truth aright.

          The Puritan spirit perishing not,
          To Concord's yeomen the signal sent,
          And spake in the voice of the cannon-shot
          That severed the chains of a continent.
          With its gentler mission of peace and good-will
          The thought of the Quaker is living still,
          And the freedom of soul he prophesied
          Is gospel and law where the martyrs died.

          1880.

## VALUATION.

         THE old Squire said, as he stood by his gate,
         And his neighbor, the Deacon, went by,
         "In spite of my bank stock and real estate,
         You are better off, Deacon, than I.

         "We're both growing old, and the end's drawing near,
         You have less of this world to resign,
         But in Heaven's appraisal your assets, I fear,
         Will reckon up greater than mine.

         "They say I am rich, but I'm feeling so poor,
         I wish I could swap with you even
         The pounds I have lived for and laid up in store
         For the shillings and pence you have given."

         "Well, Squire," said the Deacon, with shrewd
         common sense,
         While his eye had a twinkle of fun,
         "Let your pounds take the way of my shillings
         and pence,
         And the thing can be easily done!"

         1880.

## RABBI ISHMAEL.

"Rabbi Ishmael Ben Elisha said, Once, I entered into the Holy of Holies (as High Priest) to burn incense, when I saw Aktriel (the Divine Crown) Jah, Lord of Hosts, sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, who said unto me, 'Ishmael, my son, bless me.' I answered, 'May it please Thee to make Thy compassion prevail over Thine anger; may it be revealed above Thy other attributes; mayest Thou deal with Thy children according to it, and not according to the strict measure of judgment.' It seemed to me that He bowed His head, as though to answer Amen to my blessing."— Talmud (Beraehoth, I. f. 6. b.)

         THE Rabbi Ishmael, with the woe and sin
         Of the world heavy upon him, entering in
         The Holy of Holies, saw an awful Face
         With terrible splendor filling all the place.
         "O Ishmael Ben Elisha!" said a voice,
         "What seekest thou? What blessing is thy choice?"
         And, knowing that he stood before the Lord,
         Within the shadow of the cherubim,
         Wide-winged between the blinding light and him,
         He bowed himself, and uttered not a word,
         But in the silence of his soul was prayer
         "O Thou Eternal! I am one of all,
         And nothing ask that others may not share.
         Thou art almighty; we are weak and small,
         And yet Thy children: let Thy mercy spare!"
         Trembling, he raised his eyes, and in the place
         Of the insufferable glory, lo! a face
         Of more than mortal tenderness, that bent
         Graciously down in token of assent,
         And, smiling, vanished! With strange joy elate,
         The wondering Rabbi sought the temple's gate.
         Radiant as Moses from the Mount, he stood
         And cried aloud unto the multitude
         "O Israel, hear! The Lord our God is good!
         Mine eyes have seen his glory and his grace;
         Beyond his judgments shall his love endure;
         The mercy of the All Merciful is sure!"

         1881.

## THE ROCK-TOMB OF BRADORE.

H. Y. Hind, in Explorations in the Interior of the Labrador Peninsula (ii. 166) mentions the finding of a rock tomb near the little fishing port of Bradore, with the inscription upon it which is given in the poem.

         A DREAR and desolate shore!
         Where no tree unfolds its leaves,
         And never the spring wind weaves
         Green grass for the hunter's tread;
         A land forsaken and dead,
         Where the ghostly icebergs go
         And come with the ebb and flow
         Of the waters of Bradore!

         A wanderer, from a land
         By summer breezes fanned,
         Looked round him, awed, subdued,
         By the dreadful solitude,
         Hearing alone the cry
         Of sea-birds clanging by,
         The crash and grind of the floe,
         Wail of wind and wash of tide.
         "O wretched land!" he cried,
         "Land of all lands the worst,
         God forsaken and curst!
         Thy gates of rock should show
         The words the Tuscan seer
         Read in the Realm of Woe
         Hope entereth not here!"

         Lo! at his feet there stood
         A block of smooth larch wood,
         Waif of some wandering wave,
         Beside a rock-closed cave
         By Nature fashioned for a grave;
         Safe from the ravening bear
         And fierce fowl of the air,
         Wherein to rest was laid
         A twenty summers' maid,
         Whose blood had equal share
         Of the lands of vine and snow,
         Half French, half Eskimo.
         In letters uneffaced,
         Upon the block were traced
         The grief and hope of man,
         And thus the legend ran
         "We loved her!
         Words cannot tell how well!
         We loved her!
         God loved her!
         And called her home to peace and rest.
         We love her."

         The stranger paused and read.
         "O winter land!" he said,
         "Thy right to be I own;
         God leaves thee not alone.
         And if thy fierce winds blow
         Over drear wastes of rock and snow,
         And at thy iron gates
         The ghostly iceberg waits,
         Thy homes and hearts are dear.
         Thy sorrow o'er thy sacred dust
         Is sanctified by hope and trust;
         God's love and man's are here.
         And love where'er it goes
         Makes its own atmosphere;
         Its flowers of Paradise
         Take root in the eternal ice,
         And bloom through Polar snows!"

         1881.

## THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS.

The volume in which "The Bay of Seven Islands" was published was dedicated to the late Edwin Percy Whipple, to whom more than to any other person I was indebted for public recognition as one worthy of a place in American literature, at a time when it required a great degree of courage to urge such a claim for a pro-scribed abolitionist. Although younger than I, he had gained the reputation of a brilliant essayist, and was regarded as the highest American authority in criticism. His wit and wisdom enlivened a small literary circle of young men including Thomas Starr King, the eloquent preacher, and Daniel N. Haskell of the Daily Transcript, who gathered about our common friend dames T. Fields at the Old Corner Bookstore. The poem which gave title to the volume I inscribed to my friend and neighbor Harriet Prescott Spofford, whose poems have lent a new interest to our beautiful river-valley.

         FROM the green Amesbury hill which bears the name
         Of that half mythic ancestor of mine
         Who trod its slopes two hundred years ago,
         Down the long valley of the Merrimac,
         Midway between me and the river's mouth,
         I see thy home, set like an eagle's nest
         Among Deer Island's immemorial pines,
         Crowning the crag on which the sunset breaks
         Its last red arrow. Many a tale and song,
         Which thou bast told or sung, I call to mind,
         Softening with silvery mist the woods and hills,
         The out-thrust headlands and inreaching bays
         Of our northeastern coast-line, trending where
         The Gulf, midsummer, feels the chill blockade
         Of icebergs stranded at its northern gate.

         To thee the echoes of the Island Sound
         Answer not vainly, nor in vain the moan
         Of the South Breaker prophesying storm.
         And thou hast listened, like myself, to men
         Sea-periled oft where Anticosti lies
         Like a fell spider in its web of fog,
         Or where the Grand Bank shallows with the wrecks
         Of sunken fishers, and to whom strange isles
         And frost-rimmed bays and trading stations seem
         Familiar as Great Neck and Kettle Cove,
         Nubble and Boon, the common names of home.
         So let me offer thee this lay of mine,
         Simple and homely, lacking much thy play
         Of color and of fancy. If its theme
         And treatment seem to thee befitting youth
         Rather than age, let this be my excuse
         It has beguiled some heavy hours and called
         Some pleasant memories up; and, better still,
         Occasion lent me for a kindly word
         To one who is my neighbor and my friend.

         1883.

                    . . . . . . . . . .

         The skipper sailed out of the harbor mouth,
         Leaving the apple-bloom of the South
         For the ice of the Eastern seas,
         In his fishing schooner Breeze.

         Handsome and brave and young was he,
         And the maids of Newbury sighed to see
         His lessening white sail fall
         Under the sea's blue wall.

         Through the Northern Gulf and the misty screen
         Of the isles of Mingan and Madeleine,
         St. Paul's and Blanc Sablon,
         The little Breeze sailed on,

         Backward and forward, along the shore
         Of lorn and desolate Labrador,
         And found at last her way
         To the Seven Islands Bay.

         The little hamlet, nestling below
         Great hills white with lingering snow,
         With its tin-roofed chapel stood
         Half hid in the dwarf spruce wood;

         Green-turfed, flower-sown, the last outpost
         Of summer upon the dreary coast,
         With its gardens small and spare,
         Sad in the frosty air.

         Hard by where the skipper's schooner lay,
         A fisherman's cottage looked away
         Over isle and bay, and behind
         On mountains dim-defined.

         And there twin sisters, fair and young,
         Laughed with their stranger guest, and sung
         In their native tongue the lays
         Of the old Provencal days.

         Alike were they, save the faint outline
         Of a scar on Suzette's forehead fine;
         And both, it so befell,
         Loved the heretic stranger well.

         Both were pleasant to look upon,
         But the heart of the skipper clave to one;
         Though less by his eye than heart
         He knew the twain apart.

         Despite of alien race and creed,
         Well did his wooing of Marguerite speed;
         And the mother's wrath was vain
         As the sister's jealous pain.

         The shrill-tongued mistress her house forbade,
         And solemn warning was sternly said
         By the black-robed priest, whose word
         As law the hamlet heard.

         But half by voice and half by signs
         The skipper said, "A warm sun shines
         On the green-banked Merrimac;
         Wait, watch, till I come back.

         "And when you see, from my mast head,
         The signal fly of a kerchief red,
         My boat on the shore shall wait;
         Come, when the night is late."

         Ah! weighed with childhood's haunts and friends,
         And all that the home sky overbends,
         Did ever young love fail
         To turn the trembling scale?

         Under the night, on the wet sea sands,
         Slowly unclasped their plighted hands
         One to the cottage hearth,
         And one to his sailor's berth.

         What was it the parting lovers heard?
         Nor leaf, nor ripple, nor wing of bird,
         But a listener's stealthy tread
         On the rock-moss, crisp and dead.

         He weighed his anchor, and fished once more
         By the black coast-line of Labrador;
         And by love and the north wind driven,
         Sailed back to the Islands Seven.

         In the sunset's glow the sisters twain
         Saw the Breeze come sailing in again;
         Said Suzette, "Mother dear,
         The heretic's sail is here."

         "Go, Marguerite, to your room, and hide;
         Your door shall be bolted!" the mother cried:
         While Suzette, ill at ease,
         Watched the red sign of the Breeze.

         At midnight, down to the waiting skiff
         She stole in the shadow of the cliff;
         And out of the Bay's mouth ran
         The schooner with maid and man.

         And all night long, on a restless bed,
         Her prayers to the Virgin Marguerite said
         And thought of her lover's pain
         Waiting for her in vain.

         Did he pace the sands? Did he pause to hear
         The sound of her light step drawing near?
         And, as the slow hours passed,
         Would he doubt her faith at last?

         But when she saw through the misty pane,
         The morning break on a sea of rain,
         Could even her love avail
         To follow his vanished sail?

         Meantime the Breeze, with favoring wind,
         Left the rugged Moisic hills behind,
         And heard from an unseen shore
         The falls of Manitou roar.

         On the morrow's morn, in the thick, gray weather
         They sat on the reeling deck together,
         Lover and counterfeit,
         Of hapless Marguerite.

         With a lover's hand, from her forehead fair
         He smoothed away her jet-black hair.
         What was it his fond eyes met?
         The scar of the false Suzette!

         Fiercely he shouted: "Bear away
         East by north for Seven Isles Bay!"
         The maiden wept and prayed,
         But the ship her helm obeyed.

         Once more the Bay of the Isles they found
         They heard the bell of the chapel sound,
         And the chant of the dying sung
         In the harsh, wild Indian tongue.

         A feeling of mystery, change, and awe
         Was in all they heard and all they saw
         Spell-bound the hamlet lay
         In the hush of its lonely bay.

         And when they came to the cottage door,
         The mother rose up from her weeping sore,
         And with angry gestures met
         The scared look of Suzette.

         "Here is your daughter," the skipper said;
         "Give me the one I love instead."
         But the woman sternly spake;
         "Go, see if the dead will wake!"

         He looked. Her sweet face still and white
         And strange in the noonday taper light,
         She lay on her little bed,
         With the cross at her feet and head.

         In a passion of grief the strong man bent
         Down to her face, and, kissing it, went
         Back to the waiting Breeze,
         Back to the mournful seas.

         Never again to the Merrimac
         And Newbury's homes that bark came back.
         Whether her fate she met
         On the shores of Carraquette,

         Miscou, or Tracadie, who can say?
         But even yet at Seven Isles Bay
         Is told the ghostly tale
         Of a weird, unspoken sail,

         In the pale, sad light of the Northern day
         Seen by the blanketed Montagnais,
         Or squaw, in her small kyack,
         Crossing the spectre's track.

         On the deck a maiden wrings her hands;
         Her likeness kneels on the gray coast sands;
         One in her wild despair,
         And one in the trance of prayer.

         She flits before no earthly blast,
         The red sign fluttering from her mast,
         Over the solemn seas,
         The ghost of the schooner Breeze!

         1882.

## THE WISHING BRIDGE.

         AMONG the legends sung or said
         Along our rocky shore,
         The Wishing Bridge of Marblehead
         May well be sung once more.

         An hundred years ago (so ran
         The old-time story) all
         Good wishes said above its span
         Would, soon or late, befall.

         If pure and earnest, never failed
         The prayers of man or maid
         For him who on the deep sea sailed,
         For her at home who stayed.

         Once thither came two girls from school,
         And wished in childish glee
         And one would be a queen and rule,
         And one the world would see.

         Time passed; with change of hopes and fears,
         And in the self-same place,
         Two women, gray with middle years,
         Stood, wondering, face to face.

         With wakened memories, as they met,
         They queried what had been
         "A poor man's wife am I, and yet,"
         Said one, "I am a queen.

         "My realm a little homestead is,
         Where, lacking crown and throne,
         I rule by loving services
         And patient toil alone."

         The other said: "The great world lies
         Beyond me as it lay;
         O'er love's and duty's boundaries
         My feet may never stray.

         "I see but common sights of home,
         Its common sounds I hear,
         My widowed mother's sick-bed room
         Sufficeth for my sphere.

         "I read to her some pleasant page
         Of travel far and wide,
         And in a dreamy pilgrimage
         We wander side by side.

         "And when, at last, she falls asleep,
         My book becomes to me
         A magic glass: my watch I keep,
         But all the world I see.

         "A farm-wife queen your place you fill,
         While fancy's privilege
         Is mine to walk the earth at will,
         Thanks to the Wishing Bridge."

         "Nay, leave the legend for the truth,"
         The other cried, "and say
         God gives the wishes of our youth,
         But in His own best way!"

         1882.

## HOW THE WOMEN WENT FROM DOVER.

The following is a copy of the warrant issued by Major Waldron, of Dover, in 1662. The Quakers, as was their wont, prophesied against him, and saw, as they supposed, the fulfilment of their prophecy when, many years after, he was killed by the Indians.

     To the constables of Dover, Hampton, Salisbury, Newbury, Rowley,
     Ipswich, Wenham, Lynn, Boston, Roxbury, Dedham, and until these
     vagabond Quakers are carried out of this jurisdiction. You, and
     every one of you, are required, in the King's Majesty's name, to
     take these vagabond Quakers, Anne Colman, Mary Tomkins, and Alice
     Ambrose, and make them fast to the cart's tail, and driving the
     cart through your several towns, to whip them upon their naked
     backs not exceeding ten stripes apiece on each of them, in each
     town; and so to convey them from constable to constable till they
     are out of this jurisdiction, as you will answer it at your peril;
     and this shall be your warrant.
                                        RICHARD WALDRON.
     Dated at Dover, December 22, 1662.

This warrant was executed only in Dover and Hampton. At Salisbury the constable refused to obey it. He was sustained by the town's people, who were under the influence of Major Robert Pike, the leading man in the lower valley of the Merrimac, who stood far in advance of his time, as an advocate of religious freedom, and an opponent of ecclesiastical authority. He had the moral courage to address an able and manly letter to the court at Salem, remonstrating against the witchcraft trials.

         THE tossing spray of Cocheco's fall
         Hardened to ice on its rocky wall,
         As through Dover town in the chill, gray dawn,
         Three women passed, at the cart-tail drawn!

         Bared to the waist, for the north wind's grip
         And keener sting of the constable's whip,
         The blood that followed each hissing blow
         Froze as it sprinkled the winter snow.

         Priest and ruler, boy and maid
         Followed the dismal cavalcade;
         And from door and window, open thrown,
         Looked and wondered gaffer and crone.

         "God is our witness," the victims cried,
         We suffer for Him who for all men died;
         The wrong ye do has been done before,
         We bear the stripes that the Master bore!

         And thou, O Richard Waldron, for whom
         We hear the feet of a coming doom,
         On thy cruel heart and thy hand of wrong
         Vengeance is sure, though it tarry long.

         "In the light of the Lord, a flame we see
         Climb and kindle a proud roof-tree;
         And beneath it an old man lying dead,
         With stains of blood on his hoary head."

         "Smite, Goodman Hate-Evil!—harder still!"
         The magistrate cried, "lay on with a will!
         Drive out of their bodies the Father of Lies,
         Who through them preaches and prophesies!"

         So into the forest they held their way,
         By winding river and frost-rimmed bay,
         Over wind-swept hills that felt the beat
         Of the winter sea at their icy feet.

         The Indian hunter, searching his traps,
         Peered stealthily through the forest gaps;
         And the outlying settler shook his head,—
         "They're witches going to jail," he said.

         At last a meeting-house came in view;
         A blast on his horn the constable blew;
         And the boys of Hampton cried up and down,
         "The Quakers have come!" to the wondering town.

         From barn and woodpile the goodman came;
         The goodwife quitted her quilting frame,
         With her child at her breast; and, hobbling slow,
         The grandam followed to see the show.

         Once more the torturing whip was swung,
         Once more keen lashes the bare flesh stung.
         "Oh, spare! they are bleeding!"' a little maid cried,
         And covered her face the sight to hide.

         A murmur ran round the crowd: "Good folks,"
         Quoth the constable, busy counting the strokes,
         "No pity to wretches like these is due,
         They have beaten the gospel black and blue!"

         Then a pallid woman, in wild-eyed fear,
         With her wooden noggin of milk drew near.
         "Drink, poor hearts!" a rude hand smote
         Her draught away from a parching throat.

         "Take heed," one whispered, "they'll take your cow
         For fines, as they took your horse and plough,
         And the bed from under you." "Even so,"
         She said; "they are cruel as death, I know."

         Then on they passed, in the waning day,
         Through Seabrook woods, a weariful way;
         By great salt meadows and sand-hills bare,
         And glimpses of blue sea here and there.

         By the meeting-house in Salisbury town,
         The sufferers stood, in the red sundown,
         Bare for the lash! O pitying Night,
         Drop swift thy curtain and hide the sight.

         With shame in his eye and wrath on his lip
         The Salisbury constable dropped his whip.
         "This warrant means murder foul and red;
         Cursed is he who serves it," he said.

         "Show me the order, and meanwhile strike
         A blow at your peril!" said Justice Pike.
         Of all the rulers the land possessed,
         Wisest and boldest was he and best.

         He scoffed at witchcraft; the priest he met
         As man meets man; his feet he set
         Beyond his dark age, standing upright,
         Soul-free, with his face to the morning light.

         He read the warrant: "These convey
         From our precincts; at every town on the way
         Give each ten lashes." "God judge the brute!
         I tread his order under my foot!

         "Cut loose these poor ones and let them go;
         Come what will of it, all men shall know
         No warrant is good, though backed by the Crown,
         For whipping women in Salisbury town!"

         The hearts of the villagers, half released
         From creed of terror and rule of priest,
         By a primal instinct owned the right
         Of human pity in law's despite.

         For ruth and chivalry only slept,
         His Saxon manhood the yeoman kept;
         Quicker or slower, the same blood ran
         In the Cavalier and the Puritan.

         The Quakers sank on their knees in praise
         And thanks. A last, low sunset blaze
         Flashed out from under a cloud, and shed
         A golden glory on each bowed head.

         The tale is one of an evil time,
         When souls were fettered and thought was crime,
         And heresy's whisper above its breath
         Meant shameful scourging and bonds and death!

         What marvel, that hunted and sorely tried,
         Even woman rebuked and prophesied,
         And soft words rarely answered back
         The grim persuasion of whip and rack.

         If her cry from the whipping-post and jail
         Pierced sharp as the Kenite's driven nail,
         O woman, at ease in these happier days,
         Forbear to judge of thy sister's ways!

         How much thy beautiful life may owe
         To her faith and courage thou canst not know,
         Nor how from the paths of thy calm retreat
         She smoothed the thorns with her bleeding feet.

         1883.

## SAINT GREGORY'S GUEST.

         A TALE for Roman guides to tell
         To careless, sight-worn travellers still,
         Who pause beside the narrow cell
         Of Gregory on the Caelian Hill.

         One day before the monk's door came
         A beggar, stretching empty palms,
         Fainting and fast-sick, in the name
         Of the Most Holy asking alms.

         And the monk answered, "All I have
         In this poor cell of mine I give,
         The silver cup my mother gave;
         In Christ's name take thou it, and live."

         Years passed; and, called at last to bear
         The pastoral crook and keys of Rome,
         The poor monk, in Saint Peter's chair,
         Sat the crowned lord of Christendom.

         "Prepare a feast," Saint Gregory cried,
         "And let twelve beggars sit thereat."
         The beggars came, and one beside,
         An unknown stranger, with them sat.

         "I asked thee not," the Pontiff spake,
         "O stranger; but if need be thine,
         I bid thee welcome, for the sake
         Of Him who is thy Lord and mine."

         A grave, calm face the stranger raised,
         Like His who on Gennesaret trod,
         Or His on whom the Chaldeans gazed,
         Whose form was as the Son of God.

         "Know'st thou," he said, "thy gift of old?"
         And in the hand he lifted up
         The Pontiff marvelled to behold
         Once more his mother's silver cup.

         "Thy prayers and alms have risen, and bloom
         Sweetly among the flowers of heaven.
         I am The Wonderful, through whom
         Whate'er thou askest shall be given."

         He spake and vanished. Gregory fell
         With his twelve guests in mute accord
         Prone on their faces, knowing well
         Their eyes of flesh had seen the Lord.

         The old-time legend is not vain;
         Nor vain thy art, Verona's Paul,
         Telling it o'er and o'er again
         On gray Vicenza's frescoed wall.

         Still wheresoever pity shares
         Its bread with sorrow, want, and sin,
         And love the beggar's feast prepares,
         The uninvited Guest comes in.

         Unheard, because our ears are dull,
         Unseen, because our eyes are dim,
         He walks our earth, The Wonderful,
         And all good deeds are done to Him.

         1883.

## BIRCHBROOK MILL.

         A NOTELESS stream, the Birchbrook runs
         Beneath its leaning trees;
         That low, soft ripple is its own,
         That dull roar is the sea's.

         Of human signs it sees alone
         The distant church spire's tip,
         And, ghost-like, on a blank of gray,
         The white sail of a ship.

         No more a toiler at the wheel,
         It wanders at its will;
         Nor dam nor pond is left to tell
         Where once was Birchbrook mill.

         The timbers of that mill have fed
         Long since a farmer's fires;
         His doorsteps are the stones that ground
         The harvest of his sires.

         Man trespassed here; but Nature lost
         No right of her domain;
         She waited, and she brought the old
         Wild beauty back again.

         By day the sunlight through the leaves
         Falls on its moist, green sod,
         And wakes the violet bloom of spring
         And autumn's golden-rod.

         Its birches whisper to the wind,
         The swallow dips her wings
         In the cool spray, and on its banks
         The gray song-sparrow sings.

         But from it, when the dark night falls,
         The school-girl shrinks with dread;
         The farmer, home-bound from his fields,
         Goes by with quickened tread.

         They dare not pause to hear the grind
         Of shadowy stone on stone;
         The plashing of a water-wheel
         Where wheel there now is none.

         Has not a cry of pain been heard
         Above the clattering mill?
         The pawing of an unseen horse,
         Who waits his mistress still?

         Yet never to the listener's eye
         Has sight confirmed the sound;
         A wavering birch line marks alone
         The vacant pasture ground.

         No ghostly arms fling up to heaven
         The agony of prayer;
         No spectral steed impatient shakes
         His white mane on the air.

         The meaning of that common dread
         No tongue has fitly told;
         The secret of the dark surmise
         The brook and birches hold.

         What nameless horror of the past
         Broods here forevermore?
         What ghost his unforgiven sin
         Is grinding o'er and o'er?

         Does, then, immortal memory play
         The actor's tragic part,
         Rehearsals of a mortal life
         And unveiled human heart?

         God's pity spare a guilty soul
         That drama of its ill,
         And let the scenic curtain fall
         On Birchbrook's haunted mill

         1884.

## THE TWO ELIZABETHS.

Read at the unveiling of the bust of Elizabeth Fry at the Friends' School, Providence, R. I.

A. D. 1209.

         AMIDST Thuringia's wooded hills she dwelt,
         A high-born princess, servant of the poor,
         Sweetening with gracious words the food she dealt
         To starving throngs at Wartburg's blazoned door.

         A blinded zealot held her soul in chains,
         Cramped the sweet nature that he could not kill,
         Scarred her fair body with his penance-pains,
         And gauged her conscience by his narrow will.

         God gave her gifts of beauty and of grace,
         With fast and vigil she denied them all;
         Unquestioning, with sad, pathetic face,
         She followed meekly at her stern guide's call.

         So drooped and died her home-blown rose of bliss
         In the chill rigor of a discipline
         That turned her fond lips from her children's kiss,
         And made her joy of motherhood a sin.

         To their sad level by compassion led,
         One with the low and vile herself she made,
         While thankless misery mocked the hand that fed,
         And laughed to scorn her piteous masquerade.

         But still, with patience that outwearied hate,
         She gave her all while yet she had to give;
         And then her empty hands, importunate,
         In prayer she lifted that the poor might live.

         Sore pressed by grief, and wrongs more hard to bear,
         And dwarfed and stifled by a harsh control,
         She kept life fragrant with good deeds and prayer,
         And fresh and pure the white flower of her soul.

         Death found her busy at her task: one word
         Alone she uttered as she paused to die,
         "Silence!"—then listened even as one who heard
         With song and wing the angels drawing nigh!

         Now Fra Angelico's roses fill her hands,
         And, on Murillo's canvas, Want and Pain
         Kneel at her feet. Her marble image stands
         Worshipped and crowned in Marburg's holy fane.

         Yea, wheresoe'er her Church its cross uprears,
         Wide as the world her story still is told;
         In manhood's reverence, woman's prayers and tears,
         She lives again whose grave is centuries old.

         And still, despite the weakness or the blame
         Of blind submission to the blind, she hath
         A tender place in hearts of every name,
         And more than Rome owns Saint Elizabeth!

         A. D. 1780.

         Slow ages passed: and lo! another came,
         An English matron, in whose simple faith
         Nor priestly rule nor ritual had claim,
         A plain, uncanonized Elizabeth.

         No sackcloth robe, nor ashen-sprinkled hair,
         Nor wasting fast, nor scourge, nor vigil long,
         Marred her calm presence. God had made her fair,
         And she could do His goodly work no wrong.

         Their yoke is easy and their burden light
         Whose sole confessor is the Christ of God;
         Her quiet trust and faith transcending sight
         Smoothed to her feet the difficult paths she trod.

         And there she walked, as duty bade her go,
         Safe and unsullied as a cloistered nun,
         Shamed with her plainness Fashion's gaudy show,
         And overcame the world she did not shun.

         In Earlham's bowers, in Plashet's liberal hall,
         In the great city's restless crowd and din,
         Her ear was open to the Master's call,
         And knew the summons of His voice within.

         Tender as mother, beautiful as wife,
         Amidst the throngs of prisoned crime she stood
         In modest raiment faultless as her life,
         The type of England's worthiest womanhood.

         To melt the hearts that harshness turned to stone
         The sweet persuasion of her lips sufficed,
         And guilt, which only hate and fear had known,
         Saw in her own the pitying love of Christ.

         So wheresoe'er the guiding Spirit went
         She followed, finding every prison cell
         It opened for her sacred as a tent
         Pitched by Gennesaret or by Jacob's well.

         And Pride and Fashion felt her strong appeal,
         And priest and ruler marvelled as they saw
         How hand in hand went wisdom with her zeal,
         And woman's pity kept the bounds of law.

         She rests in God's peace; but her memory stirs
         The air of earth as with an angel's wings,
         And warms and moves the hearts of men like hers,
         The sainted daughter of Hungarian kings.

         United now, the Briton and the Hun,
         Each, in her own time, faithful unto death,
         Live sister souls! in name and spirit one,
         Thuringia's saint and our Elizabeth!

         1885.

## REQUITAL.

         As Islam's Prophet, when his last day drew
         Nigh to its close, besought all men to say
         Whom he had wronged, to whom he then should pay
         A debt forgotten, or for pardon sue,
         And, through the silence of his weeping friends,
         A strange voice cried: "Thou owest me a debt,"
         "Allah be praised!" he answered. "Even yet
         He gives me power to make to thee amends.
         O friend! I thank thee for thy timely word."
         So runs the tale. Its lesson all may heed,
         For all have sinned in thought, or word, or deed,
         Or, like the Prophet, through neglect have erred.
         All need forgiveness, all have debts to pay
         Ere the night cometh, while it still is day.

         1885.

## THE HOMESTEAD.

         AGAINST the wooded hills it stands,
         Ghost of a dead home, staring through
         Its broken lights on wasted lands
         Where old-time harvests grew.

         Unploughed, unsown, by scythe unshorn,
         The poor, forsaken farm-fields lie,
         Once rich and rife with golden corn
         And pale green breadths of rye.

         Of healthful herb and flower bereft,
         The garden plot no housewife keeps;
         Through weeds and tangle only left,
         The snake, its tenant, creeps.

         A lilac spray, still blossom-clad,
         Sways slow before the empty rooms;
         Beside the roofless porch a sad
         Pathetic red rose blooms.

         His track, in mould and dust of drouth,
         On floor and hearth the squirrel leaves,
         And in the fireless chimney's mouth
         His web the spider weaves.

         The leaning barn, about to fall,
         Resounds no more on husking eves;
         No cattle low in yard or stall,
         No thresher beats his sheaves.

         So sad, so drear! It seems almost
         Some haunting Presence makes its sign;
         That down yon shadowy lane some ghost
         Might drive his spectral kine!

         O home so desolate and lorn!
         Did all thy memories die with thee?
         Were any wed, were any born,
         Beneath this low roof-tree?

         Whose axe the wall of forest broke,
         And let the waiting sunshine through?
         What goodwife sent the earliest smoke
         Up the great chimney flue?

         Did rustic lovers hither come?
         Did maidens, swaying back and forth
         In rhythmic grace, at wheel and loom,
         Make light their toil with mirth?

         Did child feet patter on the stair?
         Did boyhood frolic in the snow?
         Did gray age, in her elbow chair,
         Knit, rocking to and fro?

         The murmuring brook, the sighing breeze,
         The pine's slow whisper, cannot tell;
         Low mounds beneath the hemlock-trees
         Keep the home secrets well.

         Cease, mother-land, to fondly boast
         Of sons far off who strive and thrive,
         Forgetful that each swarming host
         Must leave an emptier hive.

         O wanderers from ancestral soil,
         Leave noisome mill and chaffering store:
         Gird up your loins for sturdier toil,
         And build the home once more!

         Come back to bayberry-scented slopes,
         And fragrant fern, and ground-nut vine;
         Breathe airs blown over holt and copse
         Sweet with black birch and pine.

         What matter if the gains are small
         That life's essential wants supply?
         Your homestead's title gives you all
         That idle wealth can buy.

         All that the many-dollared crave,
         The brick-walled slaves of 'Change and mart,
         Lawns, trees, fresh air, and flowers, you have,
         More dear for lack of art.

         Your own sole masters, freedom-willed,
         With none to bid you go or stay,
         Till the old fields your fathers tilled,
         As manly men as they!

         With skill that spares your toiling hands,
         And chemic aid that science brings,
         Reclaim the waste and outworn lands,
         And reign thereon as kings

         1886.

## HOW THE ROBIN CAME.

### AN ALGONQUIN LEGEND.

         HAPPY young friends, sit by me,
         Under May's blown apple-tree,
         While these home-birds in and out
         Through the blossoms flit about.
         Hear a story, strange and old,
         By the wild red Indians told,
         How the robin came to be:

         Once a great chief left his son,—
         Well-beloved, his only one,—
         When the boy was well-nigh grown,
         In the trial-lodge alone.
         Left for tortures long and slow
         Youths like him must undergo,
         Who their pride of manhood test,
         Lacking water, food, and rest.

         Seven days the fast he kept,
         Seven nights he never slept.
         Then the young boy, wrung with pain,
         Weak from nature's overstrain,
         Faltering, moaned a low complaint
         "Spare me, father, for I faint!"
         But the chieftain, haughty-eyed,
         Hid his pity in his pride.
         "You shall be a hunter good,
         Knowing never lack of food;
         You shall be a warrior great,
         Wise as fox and strong as bear;
         Many scalps your belt shall wear,
         If with patient heart you wait
         Bravely till your task is done.
         Better you should starving die
         Than that boy and squaw should cry
         Shame upon your father's son!"

         When next morn the sun's first rays
         Glistened on the hemlock sprays,
         Straight that lodge the old chief sought,
         And boiled sainp and moose meat brought.
         "Rise and eat, my son!" he said.
         Lo, he found the poor boy dead!

         As with grief his grave they made,
         And his bow beside him laid,
         Pipe, and knife, and wampum-braid,
         On the lodge-top overhead,
         Preening smooth its breast of red
         And the brown coat that it wore,
         Sat a bird, unknown before.
         And as if with human tongue,
         "Mourn me not," it said, or sung;
         "I, a bird, am still your son,
         Happier than if hunter fleet,
         Or a brave, before your feet
         Laying scalps in battle won.
         Friend of man, my song shall cheer
         Lodge and corn-land; hovering near,
         To each wigwam I shall bring
         Tidings of the corning spring;
         Every child my voice shall know
         In the moon of melting snow,
         When the maple's red bud swells,
         And the wind-flower lifts its bells.
         As their fond companion
         Men shall henceforth own your son,
         And my song shall testify
         That of human kin am I."

         Thus the Indian legend saith
         How, at first, the robin came
         With a sweeter life from death,
         Bird for boy, and still the same.
         If my young friends doubt that this
         Is the robin's genesis,
         Not in vain is still the myth
         If a truth be found therewith
         Unto gentleness belong
         Gifts unknown to pride and wrong;
         Happier far than hate is praise,—
         He who sings than he who slays.

## BANISHED FROM MASSACHUSETTS.

### 1660.

On a painting by E. A. Abbey. The General Court of Massachusetts enacted Oct. 19, 1658, that "any person or persons of the cursed sect of Quakers" should, on conviction of the same, be banished, on pain of death, from the jurisdiction of the common-wealth.

         OVER the threshold of his pleasant home
         Set in green clearings passed the exiled Friend,
         In simple trust, misdoubting not the end.
         "Dear heart of mine!" he said, "the time has come
         To trust the Lord for shelter." One long gaze
         The goodwife turned on each familiar thing,—
         The lowing kine, the orchard blossoming,
         The open door that showed the hearth-fire's blaze,—
         And calmly answered, "Yes, He will provide."
         Silent and slow they crossed the homestead's bound,
         Lingering the longest by their child's grave-mound.
         "Move on, or stay and hang!" the sheriff cried.
         They left behind them more than home or land,
         And set sad faces to an alien strand.

         Safer with winds and waves than human wrath,
         With ravening wolves than those whose zeal for God
         Was cruelty to man, the exiles trod
         Drear leagues of forest without guide or path,
         Or launching frail boats on the uncharted sea,
         Round storm-vexed capes, whose teeth of granite ground
         The waves to foam, their perilous way they wound,
         Enduring all things so their souls were free.
         Oh, true confessors, shaming them who did
         Anew the wrong their Pilgrim Fathers bore
         For you the Mayflower spread her sail once more,
         Freighted with souls, to all that duty bid
         Faithful as they who sought an unknown land,
         O'er wintry seas, from Holland's Hook of Sand!

         So from his lost home to the darkening main,
         Bodeful of storm, stout Macy held his way,
         And, when the green shore blended with the gray,
         His poor wife moaned: "Let us turn back again."
         "Nay, woman, weak of faith, kneel down," said he,
         And say thy prayers: the Lord himself will steer;
         And led by Him, nor man nor devils I fear!
         So the gray Southwicks, from a rainy sea,
         Saw, far and faint, the loom of land, and gave
         With feeble voices thanks for friendly ground
         Whereon to rest their weary feet, and found
         A peaceful death-bed and a quiet grave
         Where, ocean-walled, and wiser than his age,
         The lord of Shelter scorned the bigot's rage.
         Aquidneck's isle, Nantucket's lonely shores,
         And Indian-haunted Narragansett saw
         The way-worn travellers round their camp-fire draw,
         Or heard the plashing of their weary oars.
         And every place whereon they rested grew
         Happier for pure and gracious womanhood,
         And men whose names for stainless honor stood,
         Founders of States and rulers wise and true.
         The Muse of history yet shall make amends
         To those who freedom, peace, and justice taught,
         Beyond their dark age led the van of thought,
         And left unforfeited the name of Friends.
         O mother State, how foiled was thy design
         The gain was theirs, the loss alone was thine.

## THE BROWN DWARF OF RUGEN.

The hint of this ballad is found in Arndt's Murchen, Berlin, 1816. The ballad appeared first in St. Nicholas, whose young readers were advised, while smiling at the absurd superstition, to remember that bad companionship and evil habits, desires, and passions are more to be dreaded now than the Elves and Trolls who frightened the children of past ages.

         THE pleasant isle of Rugen looks the Baltic water o'er,
         To the silver-sanded beaches of the Pomeranian
         shore;

         And in the town of Rambin a little boy and maid
         Plucked the meadow-flowers together and in the
         sea-surf played.

         Alike were they in beauty if not in their degree
         He was the Amptman's first-born, the miller's
         child was she.

         Now of old the isle of Rugen was full of Dwarfs
         and Trolls,
         The brown-faced little Earth-men, the people without
         souls;

         And for every man and woman in Rugen's island
         found
         Walking in air and sunshine, a Troll was
         underground.

         It chanced the little maiden, one morning, strolled
         away
         Among the haunted Nine Hills, where the elves
         and goblins play.

         That day, in barley-fields below, the harvesters had
         known
         Of evil voices in the air, and heard the small horns
         blown.

         She came not back; the search for her in field and
         wood was vain
         They cried her east, they cried her west, but she
         came not again.

         "She's down among the Brown Dwarfs," said the
         dream-wives wise and old,
         And prayers were made, and masses said, and
         Rambin's church bell tolled.

         Five years her father mourned her; and then John
         Deitrich said
         "I will find my little playmate, be she alive or
         dead."

         He watched among the Nine Hills, he heard the
         Brown Dwarfs sing,
         And saw them dance by moonlight merrily in a
         ring.

         And when their gay-robed leader tossed up his cap
         of red,
         Young Deitrich caught it as it fell, and thrust it
         on his head.

         The Troll came crouching at his feet and wept for
         lack of it.
         "Oh, give me back my magic cap, for your great
         head unfit!"

         "Nay," Deitrich said; "the Dwarf who throws his
         charmed cap away,
         Must serve its finder at his will, and for his folly
         pay.

         "You stole my pretty Lisbeth, and hid her in the
         earth;
         And you shall ope the door of glass and let me
         lead her forth."

         "She will not come; she's one of us; she's
         mine!" the Brown Dwarf said;
         The day is set, the cake is baked, to-morrow we
         shall wed."

         "The fell fiend fetch thee!" Deitrich cried, "and
         keep thy foul tongue still.
         Quick! open, to thy evil world, the glass door of
         the hill!"

         The Dwarf obeyed; and youth and Troll down, the
         long stair-way passed,
         And saw in dim and sunless light a country strange
         and vast.

         Weird, rich, and wonderful, he saw the elfin
         under-land,—
         Its palaces of precious stones, its streets of golden
         sand.

         He came unto a banquet-hall with tables richly
         spread,
         Where a young maiden served to him the red wine
         and the bread.

         How fair she seemed among the Trolls so ugly and
         so wild!
         Yet pale and very sorrowful, like one who never
         smiled!

         Her low, sweet voice, her gold-brown hair, her tender
         blue eyes seemed
         Like something he had seen elsewhere or some.
         thing he had dreamed.

         He looked; he clasped her in his arms; he knew
         the long-lost one;
         "O Lisbeth! See thy playmate—I am the
         Amptman's son!"

         She leaned her fair head on his breast, and through
         her sobs she spoke
         "Oh, take me from this evil place, and from the
         elfin folk,

         "And let me tread the grass-green fields and smell
         the flowers again,
         And feel the soft wind on my cheek and hear the
         dropping rain!

         "And oh, to hear the singing bird, the rustling of
         the tree,
         The lowing cows, the bleat of sheep, the voices of
         the sea;

         "And oh, upon my father's knee to sit beside the
         door,
         And hear the bell of vespers ring in Rambin
         church once more!"

         He kissed her cheek, he kissed her lips; the Brown
         Dwarf groaned to see,
         And tore his tangled hair and ground his long
         teeth angrily.

         But Deitrich said: "For five long years this tender
         Christian maid
         Has served you in your evil world and well must
         she be paid!

         "Haste!—hither bring me precious gems, the
         richest in your store;
         Then when we pass the gate of glass, you'll take
         your cap once more."

         No choice was left the baffled Troll, and, murmuring,
         he obeyed,
         And filled the pockets of the youth and apron of
         the maid.

         They left the dreadful under-land and passed the
         gate of glass;
         They felt the sunshine's warm caress, they trod the
         soft, green grass.

         And when, beneath, they saw the Dwarf stretch up
         to them his brown
         And crooked claw-like fingers, they tossed his red
         cap down.

         Oh, never shone so bright a sun, was never sky so
         blue,
         As hand in hand they homeward walked the pleasant
         meadows through!

         And never sang the birds so sweet in Rambin's
         woods before,
         And never washed the waves so soft along the Baltic
         shore;

         And when beneath his door-yard trees the father
         met his child,
         The bells rung out their merriest peal, the folks
         with joy ran wild.

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