Its burning showed us Italy, And all the hopes she had to keep.
This light is out in Italy,
Her eyes shall seek for it in vain! For her sweet sake it spent itself, Too early flickering to its wane, Too long blown over by her pain. Bow down and weep, O Italy, Thou canst not kindle it again!
LAURA C. REDDEN (Howard Glyndon).
| God-fearing, learnèd in life's hard-taught school; By long obedience lessoned how to rule ; Through many an early struggle led to find That crown of prosperous fortune, - to be kind. Lay on his breast these English daisies sweet! Good rest to the gray head and the tired feet That walked this world for seventy steadfast
Bury him with fond blessings and few tears, Or only of remembrance, not regret. On his full life the eternal seal is set, Unbroken till the resurrection day. So let his children's children go their way, Go and do likewise, leaving 'neath this sod An honest man, "the noblest work of God." DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK.
JOHN CHARLES FREMONT.
THY error, Fremont, simply was to act A brave man's part, without the statesman's tact, And, taking counsel but of common sense, To strike at cause as well as consequence. O, never yet since Roland wound his horn At Roncesvalles has a blast been blown Far-heard, wide-echoed, startling as thine own, Heard from the van of freedom's hope forlorn! It had been safer, doubtless, for the time, To flatter treason, and avoid offence
To that Dark Power whose underlying crime Heaves upward its perpetual turbulence. But, if thine be the fate of all who break
The ground for truth's seed, or forerun their
Till lost in distance, or with stout hearts make A lane for freedom through the level spears, Still take thou courage! God has spoken through
Irrevocable, the mighty words, Be free!
The land shakes with them, and the slave's dull
Turns from the rice-swamp stealthily to hear. Who would recall them now must first arrest The winds that blow down from the free North- west,
Ruffling the Gulf; or like a scroll roll back The Mississippi to its upper springs. Such words fulfil their prophecy, and lack But the full time to harden into things.
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
TO THE MEMORY OF FLETCHER HARPER.
No soldier, statesman, hierophant, or king; None of the heroes that you poets sing; A toiler ever since his days began,
Simple, though shrewd, just-judging, man to
And the mother at home says, "Hark!
For his voice I listen and yearn :
It is growing late and dark,
And my boy does not return!"
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
THE PRAYER OF AGASSIZ.
Ox the isle of Penikese, Ringed about by sapphire seas, Fanned by breezes salt and cool, Stood the Master with his school. Over sails that not in vain Wooed the west-wind's steady strain, Line of coast that low and far Stretched its undulating bar, Wings aslant along the rim
Of the waves they stooped to skim, Rock and isle and glistening bay, Fell the beautiful white day.
Said the Master to the youth: "We have come in search of truth, Trying with uncertain key Door by door of mystery;
We are reaching, through His laws, To the garment-hem of Cause, Him, the endless, unbegun, The Unnameable, the One, Light of all our light the Source, Life of life, and Force of force. As with fingers of the blind, We are groping here to find What the hieroglyphics mean Of the Unseen in the seen,
What the Thought which underlies Nature's masking and disguise, What it is that hides beneath
Blight and bloom and birth and death. By past efforts unavailing,
Doubt and error, loss and failing, Of our weakness made aware, On the threshold of our task Let us light and guidance ask, Let us pause in silent prayer!"
Then the Master in his place Bowed his head a little space, And the leaves by soft airs stirred, Lapse of wave and cry of bird, Left the solemn hush unbroken Of that wordless prayer unspoken, While its wish, on earth unsaid, Rose to heaven interpreted. As in life's best hours we hear By the spirit's finer ear His low voice within us, thus
The All-Father heareth us; And his holy ear we pain With our noisy words and vain. Not for him our violence, Storming at the gates of sense, His the primal language, his The eternal silences!
Even the careless heart was moved, And the doubting gave assent, With a gesture reverent, To the Master well-beloved. As thin mists are glorified By the light they cannot hide, All who gazed upon him saw, Through its veil of tender awe, How his face was still uplit By the old sweet look of it, Hopeful, trustful, full of cheer, And the love that casts out fear. Who the secret may declare Of that brief, unuttered prayer? Did the shade before him come Of the inevitable doom, Of the end of earth so near, And Eternity's new year?
In the lap of sheltering seas Rests the isle of Penikese ; But the lord of the domain Comes not to his own again: Where the eyes that follow fail, On a vaster sea his sail
Drifts beyond our beek and hail! Other lips within its bound Shall the laws of life expound;
Other eyes from rock and shell Read the world's old riddles well; But when breezes light and bland Blow from Summer's blossomed land, When the air is glad with wings, And the blithe song-sparrow sings, Many an eye with his still face Shall the living ones displace, Many an ear the word shall seek He alone could fitly speak. And one name forevermore Shall be uttered o'er and o'er By the waves that kiss the shore, By the curlew's whistle, sent Down the cool, sea-scented air; In all voices known to her Nature own her worshipper, Half in triumph, half lament. Thither love shall tearful turn, Friendship pause uncovered there, And the wisest reverence learn From the Master's silent prayer.
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIE
Fair City by the Sea! upraise
His veil with reverent hands; And mingle with thy own the praise And pride of other lands.
Let Greece his fiery lyric breathe
Above her hero-urns ;
And Scotland, with her holly, wreathe The flower he culled for Burns.
O, stately stand thy palace walls, Thy tall ships ride the seas; To-day thy poet's name recalls A prouder thought than these.
Not less thy pulse of trade shall beat, Nor less thy tall fleets swim, That shaded square and dusty street Are classic ground through him.
Alive, he loved, like all who sing, The echoes of his song; Too late the tardy meed we bring,
The praise delayed so long.
Too late, alas! - Of all who knew The living man, to-day Before his unveiled face, how few
Make bare their locks of gray!
Our lips of praise must soon be dumb, Our grateful eyes be dim; O, brothers of the days to come, Take tender charge of him!
New hands the wires of song may sweep, New voices challenge fame; But let no moss of years o'ercreep The lines of Halleck's name.
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
THE DUKE OF GLOSTER.
I, that am rudely stamped and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph; I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them, Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to see my shadow in the sun. King Richard III., Acti. Sc. 1.
As that renowmèd poet them compyled With warlike numbers and heroicke sound, Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled, On Fame's eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled.
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE.
For that fine madness still he did retain, Which rightly should possess a poet's brain.
To Henry Reynolds: Of Poets and Poesy. M. DRAYTON.
THE EARL OF WARWICK.
Peace, impudent and shameless Warwick! Proud setter-up and puller-down of kings.
King Henry VI., Part III. Act iii. Sc. 3.
If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined, The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind! Essay on Man, Epistle IV.
EARL OF MARLBOROUGH.
[Lord-President of the Council to King James 1. Parliament was dissolved March 10, and he died March 14, 1628)
Till the sad breaking of that Parliament Broke him..
Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have Killed with report that old man eloquent.
So nimble, and so full of subtle flame,
As if that every one from whence they came Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And had resolved to live a fool the rest
To the Lady Margaret Ley.
As thou these ashes, little Brook! wilt bear
Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas, Into main ocean they, this deed accursed
Of his dull life: then when there hath been Into the Avon, Avon to the tide
Wit able enough to justify the town
For three days past; wit that might warrant be An emblem yields to friends and enemies, For the whole city to talk foolishly
How the bold Teacher's doctrine, sanctified
Till that were cancelled; and when that was geno, By truth, shall spread, throughout the world We left an air behind us, which alone Was able to make the two next companies (Right witty, though but downright fools) more
Eccles. Sonnets, Part II. xvii.: To Wickliffe.
[Bartlett quotes, in this connection, the following:]
"Some prophet of that day said :
For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb. How shall I then begin, or where conclude,
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