Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

LOWELL

THE great trees murmur at the midnight hour;
The birds in silence wait:

A soul is passing to the Fount of Power,—
Elmwood is desolate.

Lover of nature, lover of his race,

Learned, and true, and strong :

Using for others, with surpassing grace,

The matchless gift of song,—

When clouds hung darkest in our day of pain,

He prophesied the light;

He looked adown the ages for the reign

Of Brotherhood and Right.

Proud of his country, helping to unbind

The fetters of the slave :

Two worlds their wreaths of honor have entwined

About one open grave.

Great in his simple love of flower and bird,

Great in the statesman's art,

He has been greatest in his lifting word

To every human heart.

He lived the lesson which Sir Launfal guessed

Through wandering far and wide;

The giver must be given in the quest :

He gave himself, and died.

SARAH K. BOLTON

Publishers: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York & Boston

[blocks in formation]

"You are old, Father William," the young man | O'er beauty's face, seeming to hide, More sweetly shows the blushing brideA soul whose intellectual beams

cried,

"And life must be hastening away;

You are cheerful, and love to converse upon death; No mists do mask, no lazy streams
Now tell me the reason, I pray."

A happy soul, that all the way To heaven hath a summer's day?

1 a cheerful, young man," Father William Wouldst see a man whose well-warmed blood replied;

"Let the cause thy attention engage;

Bathes him in a genuine flood? A man whose tunèd humors be

In the days of my youth I remembered my God! | A seat of rarest harmony?

And he hath not forgotten my age.'

[ocr errors]

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

OLD AGE OF TEMPERANCE.

FROM AS YOU LIKE IT," ACT II. SC. 2.

ADAM. Let me be your servant; Though I look old, yet am I strong and lusty: For in my youth I never did apply Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood; Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo The means of weakness and debility. Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, Frosty, but kindly let me go with you; I'll do the service of a younger man In all your business and necessities.

SHAKESPEARE.

Wouldst see blithe looks, fresh cheeks beguile

Age? Wouldst see December smile?
Wouldst see nest of new roses grow

In a bed of reverend snow?
Warm thoughts, free spirits flattering
Winter's self into a spring?-

In sum, wouldst see a man that can
Live to be old, and still a man?
Whose latest and most leadened hours
Fall with soft wings, stuck with soft flowers;
And when life's sweet fable ends,
Soul and body part like friends -
No quarrels, murmurs, no delay
A kiss, a sigh, and so away?
This rare one, reader, wouldst thou see?
Hark, hither! and thyself be he!

[ocr errors]

RICHARD CRASHAW.

[merged small][ocr errors]

That which makes us have no need
Of physic, that's physic indeed.
Hark, hither, reader! wilt thou see
Nature her own physician be?
Wilt see a man all his own wealth,
His own music, his own health
A man whose sober soul can tell
How to wear her garments well —
Her garments that upon her sit
As garments should do, close and fit-

A well-clothed soul that 's not oppressed
Nor choked with what she should be dressed
A soul sheathed in a crystal shrine,
Through which all her bright features shine :
As when a piece of wanton lawn,
A thin aerial veil, is drawn

GO, FEEL WHAT I HAVE FELT.

[By a young lady, who was told that she was a monomaniac in he hatred of alcoholic liquors.]

Go, feel what I have felt,

Go, bear what I have borne ;
Sink 'neath a blow a father dealt,

And the cold, proud world's scorn:
Thus struggle on from year to year,
Thy sole relief the scalding tear.

Go, weep as I have wept

O'er a loved father's fall;
See every cherished promise swept,

Youth's sweetness turned to gall;
Hope's faded flowers strewed all the way
That led me up to woman's day.

Go, kneel as I have knelt ;
Implore, beseech, and pray,
Strive the besotted heart to melt,
The downward course to stay;
Be cast with bitter curse aside,
Thy prayers burlesqued, thy tears defied.

Go, stand where I have stood,
And see the strong man bow;
With gnashing teeth, lips bathed in blood,
And cold and livid brow;

Go, catch his wandering glance, and see
There mirrored his soul's misery.

[blocks in formation]

Go to a mother's side,

And her crushed spirit cheer;
Thine own deep anguish hide,

Wipe from her cheek the tear;
Mark her dimmed eye, her furrowed brow,
The gray that streaks her dark hair now,
The toil-worn frame, the trembling limb,
And trace the ruin back to him
Whose plighted faith, in early youth,
Promised eternal love and truth,
But who, forsworn, hath yielded up
This promise to the deadly cup,

And led her down from love and light,
From all that made her pathway bright,
And chained her there mid want and strife,
That lowly thing, - a drunkard's wife!
And stamped on childhood's brow, so mild,
That withering blight, a drunkard's child!

[blocks in formation]

The rogue is growing a little old;

[blocks in formation]

The night's before us, fill the glasses!

Five years we've tramped through wind and Quick, sir! I'm ill, - my brain is going!

weather,

And slept out-doors when nights were cold,

And ate and drank - and starved together.

We've learned what comfort is, I tell you!
A bed on the floor, a bit of rosin,
A fire to thaw our thumbs (poor fellow !

The paw he holds up there's been frozen),

Some brandy, passes!

[ocr errors][ocr errors]

thank you, there! it

Why not reform? That's easily said, But I've gone through such wretched treat ment,

Sometimes forgetting the taste of bread,

And scarce remembering what meat meant,

[blocks in formation]

If you had seen her, so fair and young,

Whose head was happy on this breast! If you could have heard the songs I sung When the wine went round, you would n't have guessed

That ever I, sir, should be straying

From door to door, with fiddle and dog, Ragged and penniless, and playing

To you to-night for a glass of grog!

She's married since, -a parson's wife;
"T was better for her that we should part,

Better the soberest, prosiest life

Than a blasted home and a broken heart.

I have seen her? Once I was weak and spent
On the dusty road, a carriage stopped;
But little she dreamed, as on she went,
Who kissed the coin that her fingers dropped!

You 've set me talking, sir; I'm sorry;
It makes me wild to think of the change!
What do you care for a beggar's story?
Is it amusing? you find it strange?
I had a mother so proud of me!

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

Another glass, and strong, to deaden

This pain; then Roger and I will start. I wonder, has he such a lumpish, leaden,

Aching thing in place of a heart?

know

He is sad sometimes, and would weep, if he could,
No doubt, remembering things that were,
A virtuous kennel, with plenty of food,
And himself a sober, respectable cur.

I'm better now; that glass was warming.
You rascal limber your lazy feet!
We must be fiddling and performing

For supper and bed, or starve in the street.
Not a very gay life to lead, you think?

But soon we shall go where lodgings are free, And the sleepers need neither victuals nor drink; The sooner the better for Roger and me!

JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE.

-

A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO.

MAY the Babylonish curse
Straight confound my stammering verse,
If I can a passage see
In this word-perplexity,
Or a fit expression find,
Or a language to my mind

(Still the phrase is wide or scant),
To take leave of thee, GREAT PLANT!
Or in any terms relate

Half my love, or half my hate;
For I hate, yet love, thee so,
That, whichever thing I show,
The plain truth will seem to be
A constrained hyperbole,
And the passion to proceed

More from a mistress than a weed.

[blocks in formation]
« VorigeDoorgaan »