And there, as here, on main and isle,
The dews of holy peace shall fall,
The same sweet heavens above him smile,
And God's dear love be over all
1874.
THE GOLDEN WEDDING OF LONGWOOD.
Longwood, not far from Bayard Taylor's birthplace in Kennett
Square, Pennsylvania, was the home of my esteemed friends John
and Hannah Cox, whose golden wedding was celebrated in 1874.
With fifty years between you and your well-kept wedding vow,
The Golden Age, old friends of mine, is not a fable now.
And, sweet as has life's vintage been through all your pleasant past,
Still, as at Cana's marriage-feast, the best wine is the last!
Again before me, with your names, fair Chester's landscape comes,
Its meadows, woods, and ample barns, and quaint, stone-builded homes.
The smooth-shorn vales, the wheaten slopes, the boscage green and soft,
Of which their poet sings so well from towered Cedarcroft.
And lo! from all the country-side come neighbors, kith and kin;
From city, hamlet, farm-house old, the wedding guests come in.
And they who, without scrip or purse, mob-hunted, travel-worn,
In Freedom's age of martyrs came, as victors now return.