Well know we our birthright may serve but to show
How the meanest of weeds in the richest soil grow;
But we need not disparage the good which we hold;
Though the vessels be earthen, the treasure is gold!
Enough and too much of the sect and the name.
What matters our label, so truth be our aim?
The creed may be wrong, but the life may be true,
And hearts beat the same under drab coats or blue.
So the man be a man, let him worship, at will,
In Jerusalem's courts, or on Gerizim's hill.
When she makes up her jewels, what cares yon good town
For the Baptist of Wayland, the Quaker of Brown?
And this green, favored island, so fresh and seablown,
When she counts up the worthies her annals have known,
Never waits for the pitiful gaugers of sect
To measure her love, and mete out her respect.
Three shades at this moment seem walking her strand,
Each with head halo-crowned, and with palms in his hand,—
Wise Berkeley, grave Hopkins, and, smiling serene
On prelate and puritan, Channing is seen.
One holy name bearing, no longer they need
Credentials of party, and pass-words of creed
The new song they sing hath a threefold accord,
And they own one baptism, one faith, and one Lord!
But the golden sands run out: occasions like these
Glide swift into shadow, like sails on the seas
While we sport with the mosses and pebbles ashore,
They lessen and fade, and we see them no more.
Forgive me, dear friends, if my vagrant thoughts seem
Like a school-boy's who idles and plays with his theme.
Forgive the light measure whose changes display
The sunshine and rain of our brief April day.
There are moments in life when the lip and the eye
Try the question of whether to smile or to cry;
And scenes and reunions that prompt like our own
The tender in feeling, the playful in tone.
I, who never sat down with the boys and the girls
At the feet of your Slocums, and Cartlands, and Earles,—
By courtesy only permitted to lay
On your festival's altar my poor gift, to-day,—