"Ah! si la jeunesse savait,—si la vieillenne pouvait!"
There sat an old man on a rock,
And unceasing bewailed him of Fate,—
That concern where we all must take stock
Though our vote has no hearing or weight;
And the old man sang him an old, old song,—
Never sang voice so clear and strong
That it could drown the old man's long,
For he sang the song "Too late! too late!"
"When we want, we have for our pains
The promise that if we but wait
Till the want has burned out of our brains,
Every means shall be present to sate;
While we send for the napkin the soup gets cold,
While the bonnet is trimming the face grows old,
When we've matched our buttons the pattern is sold,
And everything comes too late,—too late!
"When strawberries seemed like red heavens,—
Terrapin stew a wild dream,—
When my brain was at sixes and sevens,
If my mother had "folks" and ice-cream,
Then I gazed with a lickerish hunger
At the restaurant-man and fruit-monger,—
But oh! how I wished I were younger
When the goodies all came in a stream, in a stream!
"I've a splendid blood horse, and—a liver
That it jars into torture to trot;
My row-boat's the gem of the river,—
Gout makes every knuckle a knot!
I can buy boundless credits on Paris and Rome,
But no palate for ménus,—no eyes for a dome,—
Those belonged to the youth who must tarry at home,
When no home but an attic he'd got,—he'd got!
"How I longed, in that lonest of garrets,
Where the tiles baked my brains all July,
For ground to grow two pecks of carrots,
Two pigs of my own in a sty,
A rosebush,—a little thatched cottage,—
Two spoons—love—a basin of pottage!—
Now in freestone I sit,—and my dotage,—
With a woman's chair empty close by,—close by!
"Ah! now, though I sit on a rock,
I have shared one seat with the great;
I have sat—knowing naught of the clock—
On love's high throne of state;
But the lips that kissed, and the arms that caressed,
To a mouth grown stern with delay were pressed,
And circled a breast that their clasp had blessed
Had they only not come too late,—too late!"
Fitz-Hugh Ludlow.
A PETITION TO TIME.
Touch us gently, Time!
Let us glide adown thy stream
Gently,—as we sometimes glide
Through a quiet dream!
Humble voyagers are we,
Husband, wife, and children three,—
(One is lost,—an angel, fled
To the azure overhead!)
Touch us gently, Time!
We've not proud nor soaring wings,
Our ambition, our content,
Lies in simple things.
Humble voyagers are we,
O'er Life's dim, unsounded sea,
Seeking only some calm clime;—
Touch us gently, gentle Time!
Bryan Waller Procter.
ICHABOD.
So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
Which once he wore!
The glory from his gray hairs gone
Forevermore!
Revile him not,—the tempter hath
A snare for all!
And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,
Befit his fall!
Oh! dumb is passion's stormy rage,
When he who might
Have lighted up and led his age,
Falls back in night.
Scorn! Would the angels laugh, to mark
A bright soul driven,
Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark,
From hope and heaven?
Let not the land, once proud of him,
Insult him now;
Nor brand with deeper shame his dim,
Dishonored brow.
But let its humbled sons, instead,
From sea to lake,
A long lament, as for the dead,
In sadness make.
Of all we loved and honored, naught
Save power remains,—
A fallen angel's pride of thought,
Still strong in chains.
All else is gone; from those great eyes
The soul has fled:
When faith is lost, when honor dies,
The man is dead!
Then, pay the reverence of old days
To his dead fame;
Walk backward, with averted gaze,
And hide the shame!
John Greenleaf Whittier.
SONG.
The heath this night must be my bed,
The bracken curtain for my head,
My lullaby the warder's tread,
Far, far from love and thee, Mary;
To-morrow eve, more stilly laid,
My couch may be my bloody plaid,
My vesper-song thy wail, sweet maid!
It will not waken me, Mary!
I may not, dare not, fancy now
The grief that clouds thy lovely brow;
I dare not think upon thy vow,
And all it promised me, Mary.
No fond regret must Norman know;
When bursts Clan-Alpine on the foe,
His heart must be like bended bow,
His foot like arrow free, Mary.
A time will come with feeling fraught!
For, if I fall in battle fought,
Thy hapless lover's dying thought
Shall be a thought on thee, Mary:
And if returned from conquered foes,
How blithely will the evening close,
How sweet the linnet sing repose
To my young bride and me, Mary.
Sir Walter Scott.
TO LUCASTA,
ON GOING TO THE WARS.
Tell me not, sweet, I am unkinde,
That from the nunnerie
Of thy chaste breast and quiet minde,
To warre and armes I flee.
True, a new mistresse now I chase,—
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith imbrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.
Yet this inconstancy is such
As you, too, should adore;
I could not love thee, deare, so much,
Loved I not honor more.
Richard Lovelace.
THE LAND OF LANDS.
You ask me, why, though ill at ease,
Within this region I subsist,
Whose spirits falter in the mist,
And languish for the purple seas?
It is the land that freemen till,
That sober-suited Freedom chose,
The land where, girt with friends or foes,
A man may speak the thing he will;
A land of settled government,
A land of just and old renown,
Where Freedom broadens slowly down
From precedent to precedent;
Where faction seldom gathers head,
But by degrees to fulness wrought,
The strength of some diffusive thought
Hath time and space to work and spread.
Should banded unions persecute
Opinion, and induce a time
When single thought is civil crime,
And individual freedom mute;
Though Power should make from land to land
The name of Britain trebly great,—
Though every channel of the state
Should almost choke with golden sand,—
Yet waft me from the harbor-mouth,
Wild wind! I seek a warmer sky,
And I will see before I die
The palms and temples of the South.
Alfred Tennyson.
THE SOLDIER'S DREAM.
Our bugles sang truce; for the night-cloud had lowered,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered,—
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.
When reposing that night on my pallet of straw,
By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain,
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,
And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again.
Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array
Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track:
'Twas autumn,—and sunshine arose on the way
To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.
I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft
In life's morning march, when my bosom was young;
I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft,
And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung.
Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore
From my home and my weeping friends never to part;
My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er,
And my wife sobbed aloud in her fulness of heart.
Stay, stay with us!—rest; thou art weary and worn!—
And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay;
But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.
Thomas Campbell.
MONTEREY.
We were not many,—we who stood
Before the iron sleet that day;
Yet many a gallant spirit would
Give half his years if but he could
Have been with us at Monterey.
Now here, now there, the shot it hailed
In deadly drifts of fiery spray,
Yet not a single soldier quailed
When wounded comrades round them wailed
Their dying shout at Monterey.
And on, still on our column kept,
Through walls of flame, its withering way;
Where fell the dead, the living stept,
Still charging on the guns which swept
The slippery streets of Monterey.
The foe himself recoiled aghast,
When, striking where he strongest lay,
We swooped his flanking batteries past,
And, braving full their murderous blast,
Stormed home the towers of Monterey.
Our banners on those turrets wave,
And there our evening bugles play;
Where orange-boughs above their grave
Keep green the memory of the brave
Who fought and fell at Monterey.
We are not many,—we who pressed
Beside the brave who fell that day;
But who of us has not confessed
He'd rather share their warrior rest
Than not have been at Monterey?
Charles Fenno Hoffman.
A SONG OF THE CAMP.
"Give us a song!" the soldiers cried,
The outer trenches guarding,
When the heated guns of the camp allied
Grew weary of bombarding.
The dark Redan, in silent scoff,
Lay grim and threatening under;
And the tawny mound of the Malakoff
No longer belched its thunder.
There was a pause. A guardsman said:
"We storm the forts to-morrow;
Sing while we may, another day
Will bring enough of sorrow."
They lay along the battery's side,
Below the smoking cannon,—
Brave hearts from Severn and from Clyde,
And from the banks of Shannon.
They sang of love, and not of fame;
Forgot was Britain's glory;
Each heart recalled a different name,
But all sang "Annie Laurie."
Voice after voice caught up the song,
Until its tender passion
Rose like an anthem rich and strong,
Their battle-eve confession.
Dear girl! her name he dared not speak;
But as the song grew louder,
Something upon the soldier's cheek
Washed off the stains of powder.
Beyond the darkening ocean burned
The bloody sunset's embers,
While the Crimean valleys learned
How English love remembers.
And once again a fire of hell
Rained on the Russian quarters,
With scream of shot and burst of shell,
And bellowing of the mortars!
And Irish Nora's eyes are dim
For a singer dumb and gory;
And English Mary mourns for him
Who sang of "Annie Laurie."
Sleep, soldiers! still in honored rest
Your truth and valor wearing;
The bravest are the tenderest,—
The loving are the daring.
Bayard Taylor.
THE CAVALIER'S SONG.
A steed! a steed of matchlesse speed,
A sword of metal keene!
All else to noble hearts is drosse,
All else on earth is meane.
The neighyinge of the war-horse prowde,
The rowlinge of the drum,
The clangor of the trumpet lowde,
Be soundes from heaven that come;
And oh! the thundering presse of knightes,
Whenas their war-cryes swell,
May tole from heaven an angel bright,
And rouse a fiend from hell.
Then mounte! then mounte, brave gallants all,
And don your helmes amaine:
Deathe's couriers, Fame and Honor, call
Us to the field againe.
No shrewish teares shall fill our eye
When the sword-hilt's in our hand,—
Heart-whole we'll part, and no whit sighe
For the fayrest of the land.
Let piping swaine and craven wight
Thus weepe and puling crye;
Our business is like men to fight,
And hero-like to die!
William Motherwell.
THE KNIGHT'S TOMB.
Where is the grave of Sir Arthur O'Kellyn?
Where may the grave of that good man be?—
By the side of a spring, on the breast of Helvellyn,
Under the twigs of a young birch tree!
The oak that in summer was sweet to hear,
And rustled its leaves in the fall of the year,
And whistled and roared in the winter alone,
Is gone,—and the birch in its stead is grown.
The knight's bones are dust,
And his good sword rust;—
His soul is with the saints, I trust.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
CORONACH.
He is gone on the mountain,
He is lost to the forest,
Like a summer-dried fountain,
When our need was the sorest.
The fount reappearing
From the rain-drops shall borrow;
But to us comes no cheering,
To Duncan no morrow!
The hand of the reaper
Takes the ears that are hoary,
But the voice of the weeper
Wails manhood in glory.
The autumn winds, rushing,
Waft the leaves that are searest,
But our flower was in flushing
When blighting was nearest.
Fleet foot on the correi,
Sage counsel in cumber,
Red hand in the foray,
How sound is thy slumber!
Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,
Thou art gone, and forever.
Sir Walter Scott.
DIRGE FOR A SOLDIER.
Close his eyes; his work is done!
What to him is friend or foeman,
Rise of moon or set of sun,
Hand of man or kiss of woman?
Lay him low, lay him low,
In the clover or the snow!
What cares he? he cannot know;
Lay him low!
As man may, he fought his fight,
Proved his truth by his endeavor;
Let him sleep in solemn night,
Sleep forever and forever.
Lay him low, lay him low,
In the clover or the snow!
What cares he? he cannot know;
Lay him low!
Fold him in his country's stars,
Roll the drum and fire the volley!
What to him are all our wars?—
What but death bemocking folly?
Lay him low, lay him low,
In the clover or the snow!
What cares he? he cannot know;
Lay him low!
Leave him to God's watching eye;
Trust him to the hand that made him.
Mortal love weeps idly by;
God alone has power to aid him.
Lay him low, lay him low,
In the clover or the snow!
What cares he? he cannot know;
Lay him low!
George Henry Boker.
ODE.
Sung on the occasion of decorating the graves of the Confederate dead at Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, S. C., 1867.
Sleep sweetly in your humble graves,—
Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause!
Though yet no marble column craves
The pilgrim here to pause,
In seeds of laurel in the earth
The blossom of your fame is blown,
And somewhere, waiting for its birth,
The shaft is in the stone!
Meanwhile, behalf the tardy years
Which keep in trust your storied tombs,
Behold! your sisters bring their tears,
And these memorial blooms.
Small tributes! but your shades will smile
More proudly on these wreaths to-day,
Than when some cannon-moulded pile
Shall overlook this bay.
Stoop, angels, hither from the skies!
There is no holier spot of ground
Than where defeated valor lies,
By mourning beauty crowned!
Henry Timrod.
ODE.
Read at Utica, N. Y., on the occasion of decorating the graves of the Federal dead, May 30, 1872.
They sleep so calm and stately,
Each in his graveyard bed,
It scarcely seems that lately
They trod the fields blood-red,
With fearless tread.
They marched and never halted,
They scaled the parapet,
The triple lines assaulted,
And paid without regret
The final debt.
The debt of slow accruing
A guilty nation made,
The debt of evil doing,
Of justice long delayed,
'Twas this they paid.
On fields where Strife held riot,
And Slaughter fed his hounds,
Where came no sense of quiet,
Nor any gentle sounds,
They made their rounds.
They wrought without repining,
Till, weary watches o'er,
They passed the bounds confining
Our green, familiar shore,
Forevermore.
And now they sleep so stately,
Each in his graveyard bed,
So calmly and sedately
They rest, that once I said:
"These men are dead.
"They know not what sweet duty
We come each year to pay,
Nor heed the blooms of beauty,
The garland gifts of May,
Strewn here to-day.
"The night-time and the day-time,
The rise and set of sun,
The winter and the May-time,
To them whose work is done,
Are all as one."
Then o'er mine eyes there floated
A vision of the Land
Where their brave souls, promoted
To Heaven's own armies, stand
At God's right hand.
From out the mighty distance
I seemed to see them gaze
Back on their old existence,
Back on the battle-blaze
Of war's dread days.
"The flowers shall fade and perish
(In larger faith spake I),
But these dear names we cherish
Are written in the sky,
And cannot die."
Theodore P. Cook.
ODE.
How sleep the brave who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blessed!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.
By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there!
William Collins.
DRIVING HOME THE COWS.
Out of the clover and blue-eyed grass
He turned them into the river-lane;
One after another he let them pass,
Then fastened the meadow bars again.
Under the willows, and over the hill,
He patiently followed their sober pace;
The merry whistle for once was still,
And something shadowed the sunny face.
Only a boy! and his father had said
He never could let his youngest go;
Two already were lying dead
Under the feet of the trampling foe.
But after the evening work was done,
And the frogs were loud in the meadow-swamp,
Over his shoulder he slung his gun
And stealthily followed the foot-path damp.
Across the clover and through the wheat
With resolute heart and purpose grim,
Though cold was the dew on his hurrying feet,
And the blind bat's flitting startled him.
Thrice since then had the lanes been white,
And the orchards sweet with apple-bloom;
And now, when the cows came back at night,
The feeble father drove them home.
For news had come to the lonely farm
That three were lying where two had lain;
And the old man's tremulous, palsied arm
Could never lean on a son's again.
The summer day grew cool and late,
He went for the cows when the work was done;
But down the lane, as he opened the gate,
He saw them coming one by one,—
Brindle, Ebony, Speckle, and Bess,
Shaking their horns in the evening wind;
Cropping the buttercups out of the grass,—
But who was it following close behind?
Loosely swung in the idle air
The empty sleeve of army blue;
And worn and pale, from the crisping hair
Looked out a face that the father knew.
For Southern prisons will sometimes yawn,
And yield their dead unto life again;
And the day that comes with a cloudy dawn
In golden glory at last may wane.
The great tears sprang to their meeting eyes;
For the heart must speak when the lips are dumb;
And under the silent evening skies
Together they followed the cattle home.
Kate Putnam Osgood.
THE BRAVE AT HOME.
The maid who binds her warrior's sash
With smile that well her pain dissembles,
The while beneath her drooping lash
One starry tear-drop hangs and trembles,
Though Heaven alone records the tear,
And Fame shall never know her story,
Her heart has shed a drop as dear
As e'er bedewed the field of glory!
The wife who girds her husband's sword,
'Mid little ones who weep or wonder,
And bravely speaks the cheering word,
What though her heart be rent asunder,
Doomed nightly in her dreams to hear
The bolts of death around him rattle,
Hath shed as sacred blood as e'er
Was poured upon the field of battle!
The mother who conceals her grief
While to her breast her son she presses,
Then breathes a few brave words and brief,
Kissing the patriot brow she blesses,
With no one but her secret God
To know the pain that weighs upon her,
Sheds holy blood as e'er the sod
Received on Freedom's field of honor!
Thomas Buchanan Read.
ON HIS BLINDNESS.
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide,
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait."
John Milton.
THE THREE FISHERS.
Three fishers went sailing out into the west,
Out into the west, as the sun went down,
Each thought on the woman who loved him the best,
And the children stood watching them out of the town;
For men must work, and women must weep,
And there's little to earn, and many to keep,
Though the harbor-bar be moaning.
Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower,
And they trimmed the lamps as the sun went down;
They looked at the squall, and they looked at the shower,
And the night-rack came rolling up ragged and brown;
But men must work, and women must weep,
Though storms be sudden, and waters deep,
And the harbor-bar be moaning.
Three corpses lie out on the shining sands,
In the morning gleam, as the tide goes down,
And the women are weeping and wringing their hands,
For those who will never come home to the town.
For men must work, and women must weep,
And the sooner it's over, the sooner to sleep,
And good by to the bar and its moaning.
Charles Kingsley.
HEROES.
The winds that once the Argo bore
Have died by Neptune's ruined shrines:
And her hull is the drift of the deep-sea floor,
Though shaped of Pelion's tallest pines.
You may seek her crew on every isle
Fair in the foam of Ægean seas;
But out of their rest no charm can wile
Jason and Orpheus and Hercules.
And Priam's wail is heard no more
By windy Ilion's sea-built walls;
Nor great Achilles, stained with gore,
Cries, "O ye gods, 'tis Hector falls!"
On Ida's mount is the shining snow;
But Jove has gone from its brow away;
And red on the plain the poppies grow
Where the Greek and the Trojan fought that day.
Mother Earth, are the heroes dead?
Do they thrill the soul of the years no more?
Are the gleaming snows and the poppies red
All that is left of the brave of yore?
Are there none to fight as Theseus fought,
Far in the young world's misty dawn?
Or to teach as the gray-haired Nestor taught?
Mother Earth, are the heroes gone?
Gone? In a grander form they rise!
Dead? We may clasp their hands in ours,
And catch the light of their clearer eyes,
And wreathe their brows with immortal flowers!
Wherever a noble deed is done,
'Tis the pulse of a hero's heart is stirred;
Wherever the Right has a triumph won,
There are the heroes' voices heard.
Their armor rings on a fairer field
Than the Greek or the Trojan ever trod:
For Freedom's sword is the blade they wield,
And the light above is the smile of God.
So in his isle of calm delight
Jason may sleep the years away;
For the heroes live, and the skies are bright,
And the world is a braver world to-day.
Edna Dean Proctor.
THE ARSENAL AT SPRINGFIELD.
This is the arsenal. From floor to ceiling,
Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms;
But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing
Startles the villages with strange alarms.
Ah! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary,
When the death-angel touches those swift keys!
What loud lament and dismal Miserere
Will mingle with their awful symphonies!
I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus,—
The cries of agony, the endless groan,
Which, through the ages that have gone before us,
In long reverberations reach our own.
On helm and harness rings the Saxon hammer;
Through Cimbric forest roars the Norseman's song;
And loud, amid the universal clamor,
O'er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong.
I hear the Florentine, who from his palace
Wheels out his battle-bell with dreadful din;
And Aztec priests upon their teocallis
Beat the wild war-drums made of serpent's skin;
The tumult of each sacked and burning village;
The shout that every prayer for mercy drowns;
The soldiers' revels in the midst of pillage;
The wail of famine in beleaguered towns;
The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched asunder,
The rattling musketry, the clashing blade;
And ever and anon, in tones of thunder,
The diapason of the cannonade.
Is it, O man, with such discordant noises,
With such accursed instruments as these,
Thou drownest Nature's sweet and kindly voices,
And jarrest the celestial harmonies?
Were half the power that fills the world with terror,
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts,
Given to redeem the human mind from error,
There were no need of arsenals or forts;
The warrior's name would be a name abhorréd;
And every nation that should lift again
Its hand against a brother, on its forehead
Would wear forevermore the curse of Cain!
Down the dark future, through long generations,
The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease;
And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations,
I hear once more the voice of Christ say, "Peace!"
Peace!—and no longer from its brazen portals
The blast of war's great organ shakes the skies;
But, beautiful as songs of the immortals,
The holy melodies of love arise.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
ODE.
What constitutes a state?
Not high raised battlement or labored mound,
Thick wall or moated gate;
Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned;
Not bays and broad-armed ports,
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;
Not starred and spangled courts,
Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride.
No: men, high-minded men,
With powers as far above dull brutes endued
In forest, brake, or den,
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude,—
Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain,
Prevent the long-aimed blow,
And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain;
These constitute a state;
And sovereign law, that state's collected will,
O'er thrones and globes elate,
Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.
Smit by her sacred frown,
The fiend Dissension like a vapor sinks;
And e'en the all-dazzling crown
Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks.
Such was this heaven-loved isle,
Than Lesbos fairer and the Cretan shore!
No more shall freedom smile?
Shall Britons languish, and be men no more?
Since all must life resign,
Those sweet rewards which decorate the brave
'Tis folly to decline,
And steal inglorious to the silent grave.
Sir William Jones.
PHILIP, MY KING.
"Who bears upon his baby brow the round
And top of sovereignty."
Look at me with thy large brown eyes,
Philip, my king!
For round thee the purple shadow lies
Of babyhood's royal dignities.
Lay on my neck thy tiny hand
With Love's invisible sceptre laden;
I am thine Esther, to command
Till thou shalt find thy queen-handmaiden,
Philip, my king!
O, the day when thou goest a-wooing,
Philip, my king!
When those beautiful lips 'gin suing,
And, some gentle heart's bars undoing,
Thou dost enter, love-crowned, and there
Sittest love-glorified!—Rule kindly,
Tenderly over thy kingdom fair;
For we that love, ah! we love so blindly,
Philip, my king!
Up from thy sweet mouth,—up to thy brow,
Philip, my king!
The spirit that there lies sleeping now
May rise like a giant, and make men bow
As to one Heaven-chosen amongst his peers.
My Saul, than thy brethren taller and fairer
Let me behold thee in future years!
Yet thy head needeth a circlet rarer,
Philip, my king;—
A wreath not of gold, but palm. One day,
Philip, my king,
Thou too must tread, as we trod, a way
Thorny, and cruel, and cold, and gray;
Rebels within thee and foes without
Will snatch at thy crown. But march on, glorious,
Martyr, yet monarch; till angels shout,
As thou sitt'st at the feet of God victorious,
"Philip, the king!"
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik.
HOW'S MY BOY?
"Ho, sailor of the sea!
How's my boy,—my boy?"
"What's your boy's name, good wife,
And in what ship sailed he?"
"My boy John,—
He that went to sea,—
What care I for the ship, sailor?
My boy's my boy to me.
"You come back from sea,
And not know my John?
I might as well have asked some landsman,
Yonder down in the town.
There's not an ass in all the parish
But knows my John.
"How's my boy,—my boy?
And unless you let me know,
I'll swear you are no sailor,
Blue jacket or no,—
Brass buttons or no, sailor,
Anchor and crown or no,—
Sure his ship was the 'Jolly Briton'"—
"Speak low, woman, speak low!"
"And why should I speak low, sailor,
About my own boy John?
If I was loud as I am proud
I'd sing him over the town!
Why should I speak low, sailor?"
"That good ship went down."
"How's my boy,—my boy?
What care I for the ship, sailor?
I was never aboard her.
Be she afloat or be she aground,
Sinking or swimming, I'll be bound
Her owners can afford her!
I say, how's my John?"
"Every man on board went down,
Every man aboard her."
"How's my boy,—my boy?
What care I for the men, sailor?
I'm not their mother,—
How's my boy,—my boy?
Tell me of him and no other!
How's my boy,—my boy?"
Sydney Dobell.
THE CHILDREN'S HOUR.
Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupations
That is known as the children's hour,
I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.
From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall-stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.
A whisper, and then a silence;
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.
A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall:
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall.
They climb up into my turret
O'er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me:
They seem to be everywhere.
They almost devour me with kisses;
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine.
Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti!
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all?
I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round tower of my heart.
And there will I keep you forever,—
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
MY CHILD.
I cannot make him dead!
His fair sunshiny head
Is ever bounding round my study chair;
Yet when my eyes, now dim
With tears, I turn to him,
The vision vanishes,—he is not there!
I walk my parlor floor,
And through the open door
I hear a footfall on the chamber stair;
I'm stepping toward the hall
To give the boy a call;
And then bethink me that—he is not there!
I thread the crowded street;
A satchelled lad I meet,
With the same beaming eyes and colored hair;
And, as he's running by,
Follow him with my eye,
Scarcely believing that—he is not there!
I know his face is hid
Under the coffin lid;
Closed are his eyes; cold is his forehead fair;
My hand that marble felt;
O'er it in prayer I knelt;
Yet my heart whispers that—he is not there!
I cannot make him dead!
When passing by the bed,
So long watched over with parental care,
My spirit and my eye
Seek him inquiringly,
Before the thought comes that—he is not there!
When, at the cool gray break
Of day, from sleep I wake,
With my first breathing of the morning air
My soul goes up, with joy,
To Him who gave my boy;
Then comes the sad thought that—he is not there!
When at the day's calm close,
Before we seek repose,
I'm with his mother, offering up our prayer;
Whate'er I may be saying,
I am in spirit praying
For our boy's spirit, though—he is not there!
Not there!—Where, then, is he?
The form I used to see
Was but the raiment that he used to wear.
The grave, that now doth press
Upon that cast-off dress,
Is but his wardrobe locked;—he is not there!
He lives!—In all the past
He lives; nor, to the last,
Of seeing him again will I despair;
In dreams I see him now;
And on his angel brow
I see it written, "Thou shalt see me there!"
Yes, we all live to God!
Father, thy chastening rod
So help us, thine afflicted ones, to bear,
That in the spirit-land,
Meeting at thy right hand,
'Twill be our heaven to find that—he is there!
John Pierpont.
THE LAND O' THE LEAL.
I'm wearin' awa', John,
Like snaw-wreaths in thaw, John,
I'm wearin' awa'
To the land o' the leal.
There's nae sorrow there, John,
There's neither cauld nor care, John,
The day is aye fair
In the land o' the leal.
Our bonnie bairn's there, John,
She was baith gude and fair, John,
And oh! we grudged her sair
To the land o' the leal.
But sorrow's sel' wears past, John,
And joy's a-comin' fast, John,
The joy that's aye to last
In the land o' the leal.
Sae dear's that joy was bought, John,
Sae free the battle fought, John,
That sinfu' man e'er brought
To the land o' the leal.
Oh! dry your glist'ning e'e, John,
My saul langs to be free, John,
And angels beckon me
To the land o' the leal.
Oh! haud ye leal and true, John,
Your day it's wearin' thro', John,
And I'll welcome you
To the land o' the leal.
Now fare ye weel, my ain John,
This warld's cares are vain, John,
We'll meet, and we'll be fain,
In the land o' the leal.
Lady Nairne.
LAMENT OF THE IRISH EMIGRANT.
I'm sittin' on the stile, Mary,
Where we sat side by side
On a bright May mornin' long ago,
When first you were my bride;
The corn was springin' fresh and green,
And the lark sang loud and high;
And the red was on your lip, Mary,
And the love-light in your eye.
The place is little changed, Mary;
The day is bright as then;
The lark's loud song is in my ear,
And the corn is green again;
But I miss the soft clasp of your hand,
And your breath, warm on my cheek;
And I still keep list'nin' for the words
You never more will speak.
'Tis but a step down yonder lane,
And the little church stands near,—
The church where we were wed, Mary;
I see the spire from here.
But the graveyard lies between, Mary,
And my step might break your rest,—
For I've laid you, darling, down to sleep,
With your baby on your breast.
I'm very lonely now, Mary,—
For the poor make no new friends;
But, oh! they love the better still
The few our Father sends!
And you were all I had, Mary,—
My blessin' and my pride:
There's nothing left to care for now,
Since my poor Mary died.
Yours was the good, brave heart, Mary,
That still kept hoping on,
When the trust in God had left my soul,
And my arm's young strength was gone;
There was comfort ever on your lip,
And the kind look on your brow,—
I bless you, Mary, for that same,
Though you cannot hear me now.
I thank you for the patient smile
When your heart was fit to break,—
When the hunger-pain was gnawin' there,
And you hid it for my sake;
I bless you for the pleasant word,
When your heart was sad and sore,—
Oh! I'm thankful you are gone, Mary,
Where grief can't reach you more!
I'm biddin' you a long farewell,
My Mary,—kind and true!
But I'll not forget you, darling,
In the land I'm goin' to;
They say there's bread and work for all,
And the sun shines always there,—
But I'll not forget old Ireland,
Were it fifty times as fair!
And often in those grand old woods
I'll sit, and shut my eyes,
And my heart will travel back again
To the place where Mary lies;
And I'll think I see the little stile
Where we sat side by side,
And the springin' corn, and the bright May morn,
When first you were my bride.
Lady Dufferin.
THE DEATH-BED.
We watched her breathing through the night,
Her breathing soft and low,
As in her breast the wave of life
Kept heaving to and fro.
So silently we seemed to speak,
So slowly moved about,
As we had lent her half our powers
To eke her living out.
Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied,—
We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.
For when the morn came, dim and sad,
And chill with early showers,
Her quiet eyelids closed,—she had
Another morn than ours.
Thomas Hood.
EVELYN HOPE.
Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead,—
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
She plucked that piece of geranium flower,
Beginning to die, too, in the glass.
Little has yet been changed, I think,—
The shutters are shut, no light may pass,
Save two long rays through the hinge's chink.
Sixteen years old when she died!
Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name,—
It was not her time to love: beside,
Her life had many a hope and aim,
Duties enough and little cares;
And now was quiet, now astir,—
Till God's hand beckoned unawares,
And the sweet white brow is all of her.
Is it too late, then, Evelyn Hope?
What! your soul was pure and true;
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire, and dew,—
And just because I was thrice as old,
And our paths in the world diverged so wide,
Each was naught to each, must I be told?
We were fellow-mortals,—naught beside?
No, indeed! for God above
Is great to grant, as mighty to make,
And creates the love to reward the love,—
I claim you still, for my own love's sake!
Delayed, it may be, for more lives yet,
Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few,—
Much is to learn and much to forget
Ere the time be come for taking you.
But the time will come—at last it will—
When, Evelyn Hope, what meant, I shall say,
In the lower earth, in the years long still,
That body and soul so pure and gay?
Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,
And your mouth of your own geranium's red,—
And what you would do with me, in fine,
In the new life come in the old one's stead.
I have lived, I shall say, so much since then,
Given up myself so many times,
Gained me the gains of various men,
Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes;
Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope,
Either I missed or itself missed me,—
And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!
What is the issue? let us see!
I loved you, Evelyn, all the while;
My heart seemed full as it could hold,—
There was space and to spare for the frank young smile,
And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold.
So hush,—I will give you this leaf to keep,—
See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand.
There, that is our secret! go to sleep;
You will wake, and remember, and understand.
Robert Browning.
A BRIDAL DIRGE.
Weave no more the marriage-chain!
All unmated is the lover;
Death has ta'en the place of Pain;
Love doth call on Love in vain:
Life and years of hope are over!
No more want of marriage-bell!
No more need of bridal favor!
Where is she to wear them well?
You beside the lover tell!
Gone,—with all the love he gave her!
Paler than the stone she lies;
Colder than the winter's morning!
Wherefore did she thus despise
(She with pity in her eyes)
Mother's care and lover's warning?
Youth and beauty,—shall they not
Last beyond a brief to-morrow?
No: a prayer, and then forgot!
This the truest lover's lot;
This the sum of human sorrow!
Bryan Waller Procter.
SHE DIED IN BEAUTY.
She died in beauty,—like a rose
Blown from its parent stem;
She died in beauty,—like a pearl
Dropped from some diadem.
She died in beauty,—like a lay
Along a moonlit lake;
She died in beauty,—like the song
Of birds amid the brake.
She died in beauty,—like the snow
On flowers dissolved away;
She died in beauty,—like a star
Lost on the brow of day.
She lives in glory,—like night's gems
Set round the silver moon;
She lives in glory,—like the sun
Amid the blue of June.
Charles Doyne Sillery.
SHE WAS NOT FAIR, NOR FULL OF GRACE.
She was not fair, nor full of grace,
Nor crowned with thought or aught beside;
Nor wealth had she, of mind or face,
To win our love or raise our pride;
No lover's thought her cheek did touch;
No poet's dream was round her thrown;
And yet we miss her,—ah, too much,
Now—she hath flown!
We miss her when the morning calls,
As one that mingled in our mirth;
We miss her when the evening falls,—
A trifle wanted on the earth!
Some fancy small, or subtile thought,
Is checked ere to its blossom grown;
Some chain is broken that we wrought,
Now—she hath flown!
No solid good, nor hope defined,
Is marred now she has sunk in night;
And yet the strong immortal Mind
Is stopped in its triumphant flight!
Perhaps some grain lost to its sphere
Might cast the great Sun from his throne;
For all we know is—"She was here,"
And—"She hath flown!"
Bryan Waller Procter.
HIGHLAND MARY.
Ye banks, and braes, and streams around
The castle o' Montgomery,
Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,
Your waters never drumlie!
There simmer first unfald her robes,
And there the langest tarry!
For there I took the last fareweel
O' my sweet Highland Mary.
How sweetly bloomed the gay green birk!
How rich the hawthorn blossom!
As, underneath their fragrant shade,
I clasped her to my bosom!
The golden hours, on angel wings,
Flew o'er me and my dearie;
For dear to me as light and life
Was my sweet Highland Mary.
Wi' monie a vow and locked embrace
Our parting was fu' tender;
And pledging aft to meet again,
We tore ourselves asunder;
But oh! fell death's untimely frost,
That nipt my flower sae early!
Now green's the sod, and cauld's the clay,
That wraps my Highland Mary!
O pale, pale now, those rosy lips
I aft hae kissed sae fondly!
And closed for aye the sparkling glance
That dwelt on me sae kindly!
And mouldering now in silent dust
That heart that lo'ed me dearly!
But still within my bosom's core
Shall live my Highland Mary.
Robert Burns.