THE POET AND THE CHILDREN. LONGFELLOW.
WITH a glory of winter sunshine
Over his locks of gray,
In the old historic mansion
He sat on his last birthday;
With his books and his pleasant pictures,
And his household and his kin,
While a sound as of myriads singing
From far and near stole in.
It came from his own fair city,
From the prairie's boundless plain,
From the Golden Gate of sunset,
And the cedarn woods of Maine.
And his heart grew warm within him,
And his moistening eyes grew dim,
For he knew that his country's children
Were singing the songs of him,
The lays of his life's glad morning,
The psalms of his evening time,
Whose echoes shall float forever
On the winds of every clime.
All their beautiful consolations,
Sent forth like birds of cheer,
Came flocking back to his windows,
And sang in the Poet's ear.
Grateful, but solemn and tender,
The music rose and fell
With a joy akin to sadness
And a greeting like farewell.
With a sense of awe he listened
To the voices sweet and young;
The last of earth and the first of heaven
Seemed in the songs they sung.
And waiting a little longer
For the wonderful change to come,
He heard the Summoning Angel,
Who calls God's children home!
And to him in a holier welcome
Was the mystical meaning given
Of the words of the blessed Master
"Of such is the kingdom of heaven!"
1882
A WELCOME TO LOWELL
Take our hands, James Russell Lowell,
Our hearts are all thy own;
To-day we bid thee welcome
Not for ourselves alone.
In the long years of thy absence
Some of us have grown old,
And some have passed the portals
Of the Mystery untold;
For the hands that cannot clasp thee,
For the voices that are dumb,
For each and all I bid thee
A grateful welcome home!
For Cedarcroft's sweet singer
To the nine-fold Muses dear;
For the Seer the winding Concord
Paused by his door to hear;
For him, our guide and Nestor,
Who the march of song began,
The white locks of his ninety years
Bared to thy winds, Cape Ann!
For him who, to the music
Her pines and hemlocks played,
Set the old and tender story
Of the lorn Acadian maid;
For him, whose voice for freedom
Swayed friend and foe at will,
Hushed is the tongue of silver,
The golden lips are still!
For her whose life of duty
At scoff and menace smiled,
Brave as the wife of Roland,
Yet gentle as a Child.
And for him the three-hilled city
Shall hold in memory long,
Those name is the hint and token
Of the pleasant Fields of Song!
For the old friends unforgotten,
For the young thou hast not known,
I speak their heart-warm greeting;
Come back and take thy own!
From England's royal farewells,
And honors fitly paid,
Come back, dear Russell Lowell,
To Elmwood's waiting shade!
Come home with all the garlands
That crown of right thy head.
I speak for comrades living,
I speak for comrades dead!
AMESBURY, 6th mo., 1885.
AN ARTIST OF THE BEAUTIFUL. GEORGE FULLER
Haunted of Beauty, like the marvellous youth
Who sang Saint Agnes' Eve! How passing fair
Her shapes took color in thy homestead air!
How on thy canvas even her dreams were truth!
Magician! who from commonest elements
Called up divine ideals, clothed upon
By mystic lights soft blending into one
Womanly grace and child-like innocence.
Teacher I thy lesson was not given in vain.
Beauty is goodness; ugliness is sin;
Art's place is sacred: nothing foul therein
May crawl or tread with bestial feet profane.
If rightly choosing is the painter's test,
Thy choice, O master, ever was the best.
1885.