90

THE PRIMROSE OF THE ROCK.

THE PRIMROSE OF THE ROCK.

WORDSWORTH.

A ROCK there is whose homely front
The passing traveller slights;

Yet there the glow-worms hang their lamps,
Like stars, at various heights,

And one coy primrose to that rock

The vernal breeze invites.

What hideous warfare hath been waged,
What kingdoms overthrown,
Since first I spied that primrose tuft,
And marked it for my own!
A lasting link in nature's chain,
From highest heaven let down.

The flowers, still faithful to the stems,
Their fellowship renew;

The stems are faithful to the root,

That worketh out of view;

And to the rock the root adheres,
In every fibre true.

Close clings to earth the living rock,
Though threatening still to fall;
The earth is constant to her sphere,
And God upholds them all;

So blooms this lonely plant, nor dreads
Her annual funeral.

91

THE PRIMROSE OF THE ROCK.

Here closed the meditative strain;
But air breathed soft that day,

The hoary mountain heights were cheered
The sunny vale looked gay;
And to the primrose of the rock

I gave this after-lay.

I sang, Let myriads of bright flowers,
Like thee, in field and grove

That love which changed, for wan disease,
For sorrow, that hath bent

O'er hopeless dust, for withered age,

Their moral element,

And turned the thistles of a curse
To types beneficent.

Sin-blighted though we are, we too,
The reasoning sons of men,
From one oblivious winter called,
Shall rise, and breathe again;

And in eternal summer lose
Our threescore years and ten.

To humbleness of heart descends
This prescience from on high,
The faith that elevates the just
Before and when they die,

And makes each soul a separate heaven,
A court for Deity.

92

WHEN I AM DEAD.

WHEN I AM DEAD.

EMMA ALICE BROWNE.

WHEN my last sunset is under a cloud
Let not your sorrow be bitter nor loud,
But strew some pale violets over my shroud
When I am dead.

For while the worn watchers are out of the room, And children are searching the gardens for bloom, You will come in and kiss me, to lessen the gloom, When I am dead.

Smooth the dark tresses from my white cheek,
Press down my eyelids so mournfully meek,
And tread very softly, but fear not to speak
Because I am dead.

Kneel by me, Allan, and murmur a prayer,
Clasping my two hands, so slender and fair,
And through the bleak silence thy voice I shall hear
If I be dead.

Weep not for me, though so early away
From all the wild joyance of life's sunny May;
Think of me often, but, sweet, never say,
Alas! she is dead.

Though a pale face at twilight, O Allan, no more Shall part the June splendors away from the door, To watch for your shadow across the wild moor,

When I am dead.

OUR COLORS AT FORT SUMTER. 93

When the red summers in loveliness break,
Come to the grave that the strangers shall make,
And smile that so sweetly my slumber I take —
Peaceful and dead.

The picture I gave you last harvest time, keep;
Look at it, Allan, but never to weep,

For her sake, who so calmly has fallen asleep
In the house of the dead.

Now kiss me, my Allan, and leave me alone,
Nigher the waves of the sorrowful moan,
And I see the white splendors that fall from the throne
Where none ever are dead.

OUR COLORS AT FORT SUMTER.

ALDRICH.

HERE'S to the Hero of Moultrie,
The valiant and the true;
True to our flag, by land and sea —
Long may it wave for you.

May never traitor's touch pollute
Those colors of the sky;

We want them pure, to wrap about
Our heroes when they die!

94

TWO HUNDRED YEARS.

TWO HUNDRED YEARS.

PIERPONT.

Two hundred years! — two hundred years!
How much of human power and pride,
What glorious hopes, what gloomy fears,
Have sunk beneath their noiseless tide!

The red man, at his horrid rite,

Seen by the stars at night's cold noon,
His bark canoe its track of light

Left on the wave beneath the moon,

His dance, his yell, his council fire,
The altar where his victim lay,
His death-song, and his funeral pyre,
That still, strong tide hath borne away.

And that pale pilgrim band is gone,

That on this shore with trembling trod, Ready to faint, yet bearing on

The ark of freedom and of God.

And war

that since o'er ocean came,
And thundered loud from yonder hill,
And wrapped its foot in sheets of flame
To blast that ark - its storm is still.

Chief, sachem, sage, bards, heroes, seers,
That live in story and in song,

Time, for the last two hundred years,

Has raised, and shown, and swept along.