Poems from the Inner Life

by Lizzie Doten

So they bade farewell to their pleasant homes,
To the hills and the valleys green,
With three hearty cheers for their native isle,
And three for the English Queen.
They sped them away, beyond cape and bay,
Where the day and the night are one—
Where the hissing light in the heavens grew bright,
And flamed like a midnight sun.
There was nought below, save the fields of snow,
That stretched to the icy pole;
And the Esquimaux, in his strange canoe,
Was the only living soul!

Along the coast, like a giant host,
The glittering icebergs frowned,
Or they met on the main, like a battle plain,
And crashed with a fearful sound!
The seal and the bear, with a curious stare,
Looked down from the frozen heights,
And the stars in the skies, with their great, wild eyes,
Peered out from the Northern Lights.
The gallant Crozier, and brave Fitz James,
And even the stout Sir John,
Felt a doubt, like a chill, through their warm hearts thrill,
As they urged the good ships on.

They sped them away, beyond cape and bay,
Where even the tear-drops freeze,
But no way was found, by a strait or sound,
To sail through the Northern seas;
They sped them away, beyond cape and bay,
And they sought, but they sought in vain,
For no way was found, through the ice around,
To return to their homes again.
Then the wild waves rose, and the waters froze,
Till they closed like a prison wall;
And the icebergs stood in the sullen flood,
Like their jailers, grim and tall.
O God! O God!—it was hard to die
In that prison house of ice!
For what was fame, or a mighty name,
When life was the fearful price?
The gallant Crozier, and brave Fitz James,
And even the stout Sir John,
Had a secret dread, and their hopes all fled,
As the weeks and the months passed on.
Then the Ice King came, with his eyes of flame,
And looked on that fated crew;
His chilling breath was as cold as death,
And it pierced their warm hearts through!
A heavy sleep, that was dark and deep,
Came over their weary eyes,
And they dreamed strange dreams of the hills and streams,
And the blue of their native skies.

The Christmas chimes, of the good old times,
Were heard in each dying ear,
And the dancing feet, and the voices sweet
Of their wives and their children dear!
But it faded away—away—away!
Like a sound on a distant shore,
And deeper and deeper grew the sleep,
Till they slept to wake no more.

O, the sailor’s wife, and the sailor’s child,
They will weep, and watch, and pray;
And the Lady Jane, she will hope in vain,
As the long years pass away!
The gallant Crozier, and brave Fitz James,
And the good Sir John have found
An open way, to a quiet bay,
And a port where we all are bound!
Let the waters roar on the ice-bound shore,
That circles the frozen pole;
But there is no sleep, and no grave so deep,
That can hold a human soul.

THE BURIAL OF WEBSTER.

Low and solemn be the requiem above the nation’s dead;
Let fervent prayers be uttered, and farewell blessings said!
Close by the sheltering homestead, beneath the household tree,
Where oft his footsteps lingered, here let the parting be!
Draw near in solemn silence, with slow and measured tread;
Come with the brow uncovered, and gaze upon the dead!
How like a fallen hero, in silent rest he lies!
With the seal of Death upon him, and its dimness in his eyes!
Speak! but there comes no answer. That voice of power is still
Which woke the slumbering Senate as with a giant’s will!—
That voice, which rang so proudly back from the echoing walls,
In court and civic council, and legislative halls;
Which summoned back those spirits, who long were mute and still,—
The Pilgrim sires of Plymouth—the dead of Bunker Hill,—
And in their silent presence gave to the past a tongue
Like that which roused the nations when Freedom’s war-cry rung.
But now, the roar of cannon, the thunder of the deep,
The battle-shock of earthquakes, cannot wake him from his sleep!
The foot that trod so proudly upon the earth’s green sod,
The manly form, created in the image of its God,
The brow, where mental greatness had set her noblest seal,
The lip, whence thoughts were uttered like shafts of polished steel,—
All, all of these shall moulder back to their parent earth,
Back to the silent bosom from whence they sprang to birth!
The man,—the living Webster—passed with a fleeting breath!
Alas, for human greatness!—the end thereof is death!
O! what is earthly glory? Ask Cæsar, when he fell
At the base of Pompey’s statue, slain by those he loved too well;
Ask the Carthaginian hero, who kept his fearful vow;
Ask Napoleon in his exile; ask the dead before ye now;—
And one answer, and one only, in the light of truth is given:
“Man’s highest earthly glory is to do the will of Heaven;
To rise and battle bravely, with dauntless moral might,
In the holy cause of Freedom, and the triumph of the Right!”
For by this simple standard shall all at last be tried,
And not by earthly glory, or works of human pride.

O Webster! thou wast mighty among thy fellow-men;
And he who seeks to judge thee must be what thou hast been;—
Must feel thine aspirations for higher aims in life,
And know the stern temptations that urged thee in the strife;
Must let his heart flow largely from out its narrow span,
And meet thee freely, fairly, as man should meet with man.
What was lost, and what resisted, is known to One alone:
Then let him who stands here guiltless “be first to cast a stone”!

Farewell! We give, with mourning, back to thy mother Earth
The robes thy soul rejected at its celestial birth!

A mightier one and stronger may stand where thou wast tried,
Yet he shall be the wiser that thou hast lived and died;
Thy greatness be his glory, thine errors let him shun,
And let him finish nobly what thou hast left undone.