Heart leaps to heart-the sacred flood
That warms us is the same; That good old man-his honest blood Alike we fondly claim.
We in one mother's arms were lock'd-
Long be her love repaid;
In the same cradle we were rock'd,
Round the same hearth we play'd.
Our boyish sports were all the same,
Each little joy and wo;-
Let manhood keep alive the flame,
Lit up so long ago.
We are but two-be that the band
To hold us till we die;
Shoulder to shoulder let us stand,
Till side by side we lie.
WHEN, from the sacred garden driven,
Man fled before his Maker's wrath,
An angel left her place in heaven,
And cross'd the wanderer's sunless path.
'Twas Art! sweet Art! new radiance broke
Where her light foot flew o'er the ground,
And thus with seraph voice she spoke:
"The curse a blessing shall be found."
She led him through the trackless wild,
Where noontide sunbeam never blazed;
The thistle shrunk, the harvest smiled,
And Nature gladden'd as she gazed. Earth's thousand tribes of living things, At Art's command, to him are given; The village grows, the city springs,
And point their spires of faith to heaven.
He rends the oak-and bids it ride,
To guard the shores its beauty graced;
He smites the rock-upheaved in pride,
See towers of strength and domes of taste.
Earth's teeming caves their wealth reveal,
Fire bears his banner on the wave,
He bids the mortal poison heal,
And leaps triumphant o'er the grave.
He plucks the pearls that stud the deep,
Admiring beauty's lap to fill;
He breaks the stubborn marble's sleep,
And mocks his own Creator's skill.
With thoughts that fill his glowing soul,
He bids the ore illume the page,
And, proudly scorning Time's control,
Commerces with an unborn age.
In fields of air he writes his name,
And treads the chambers of the sky, He reads the stars, and grasps the flame That quivers round the throne on high. In war renown'd, in peace sublime,
He moves in greatness and in grace; His power, subduing space and time,
Links realm to realm, and race to race.
O, IT is life! departed days
Fling back their brightness while I
'Tis EMMA's self-this brow so fair,
Half-curtain'd in this glossy hair,
These eyes, the very home of love,
The dark twin arches traced above,
These red-ripe lips that almost speak,
The fainter blush of this pure cheek,
The rose and lily's beauteous strife-
It is-ah no!-'tis all but life.
"Tis all but life-art could not save
Thy graces, EMMA, from the grave;
Thy cheek is pale, thy smile is past,
Thy love-lit eyes have look'd their last;
Mouldering beneath the coffin's lid,
All we adored of thee is hid;
Thy heart, where goodness loved to dwell,
Is throbless in the narrow cell;
Thy gentle voice shall charm no more;
Its last, last, joyful note is o'er.
Oft, oft, indeed, it hath been sung,
The requiem of the fair and young;
The theme is old, alas! how old,
Of grief that will not be controll'd,
Of sighs that speak a father's wo,
Of pangs that none but mothers know,
Of friendship, with its bursting heart,
Doom'd from the idol-one to part-
Still its sad debt must feeling pay,
Till feeling, too, shall pass away.
O say, why age, and grief, and pain
Shall long to go, but long in vain;
Why vice is left to mock at time,
And, gray in years, grow gray in crime;
While youth, that every eye makes glad,
And beauty, all in radiance clad,
And goodness, cheering every heart,
Come, but come only to depart;
Sunbeams, to cheer life's wintry day,
Sunbeams, to flash, then fade away.
'Tis darkness all! black banners wave
Round the cold borders of the grave;
There, when in agony we bend
O'er the fresh sod that hides a friend,
One only comfort then we know——
We, too, shall quit this world of wo;
We, too, shall find a quiet place
With the dear lost ones of our race;
Our crumbling bones with theirs shall blend,
And life's sad story find an end.
And is this all-this mournful doom?
Beams no glad light beyond the tomb?
Mark how yon clouds in darkness ride,
They do not quench the orb they hide,
Still there it wheels-the tempest o'er,
In a bright sky to burn once more;
So, far above the clouds of time,
Faith can behold a world sublime-
There, when the storms of life are past,
The light beyond shall break at last.
Behold! they come-those sainted forms,
Unshaken through the strife of storms;
Heaven's winter cloud hangs coldly down,
And earth puts on its rudest frown;
But colder, ruder was the hand
That drove them from their own fair land;
Their own fair land-refinement's chosen seat,
Art's trophied dwelling, Learning's green retreat;
By valour guarded, and by victory crown'd,
For all, but gentle charity renown'd.
With streaming eye, yet steadfast heart,
Even from that land they dared to part,
And burst each tender tie;
Haunts, where their sunny youth was pass'd,
Homes, where they fondly hoped at last
In peaceful age to die.
Friends, kindred, comfort, all they spurn'd;
Their fathers' hallow'd graves;
And to a world of darkness turn'd,
Beyond a world of waves.
When ISRAEL's race from bondage fled,
Signs from on high the wanderers led;
But here-Heaven hung no symbol here,
Their steps to guide, their souls to cheer;
They saw, through sorrow's lengthening night,
Naught but the fagot's guilty light;
The cloud they gazed at was the smoke
That round their murder'd brethren broke.
Nor power above, nor power below
Sustain'd them in their hour of wo;
A fearful path they trod,
And dared a fearful doom;
To build an altar to their Gon,
And find a quiet tomb.
* Pronounced at the Centennial Celebration of the Settlement of Boston, September, 1830.
But not alone, not all unbless'd,
The exile sought a place of rest;
ONE dared with him to burst the knot
That bound her to her native spot;
Her low, sweet voice in comfort spoke,
As round their bark the billows broke;
She through the midnight watch was there,
With him to bend her knees in prayer;
She trod the shore with girded heart,
Through good and ill to claim her part;
In life, in death, with him to seal
Her kindred love, her kindred zeal.
They come;-that coming who shall tell?
The eye may weep, the heart may swell,
But the poor tongue in vain essays
A fitting note for them to raise.
We hear the after-shout that rings
For them who smote the power of kings;
The swelling triumph all would share,
But who the dark defeat would dare,
And boldly meet the wrath and wo
That wait the unsuccessful blow?
It were an envied fate, we deem,
To live a land's recorded theme,
When we are in the tomb;
We, too, might yield the joys of home,
And waves of winter darkness roam,
And tread a shore of gloomKnew we those waves, through coming time, Should roll our names to every clime; Felt we that millions on that shore Should stand, our memory to adore. But no glad vision burst in light Upon the Pilgrims' aching sight; Their hearts no proud hereafter swell'd; Deep shadows veil'd the way they held;
The yell of vengeance was their trump of fame, Their monument, a grave without a name.
Yet, strong in weakness, there they stand, On yonder ice-bound rock,
Stern and resolved, that faithful band,
To meet fate's rudest shock. Though anguish rends the father's breast, For them, his dearest and his best,
With him the waste who trodThough tears that freeze, the mother sheds Upon her children's houseless heads-The Christian turns to Gon!
In grateful adoration now,
Upon the barren sands they bow.
What tongue of joy e'er woke such prayer
As bursts in desolation there?
What arm of strength e'er wrought such power
As waits to crown that feeble hour?
There into life an infant empire springs!
There falls the iron from the soul;
There Liberty's young accents roll
Up to the King of kings!
To fair creation's farthest bound
That thrilling summons yet shall sound;
The dreaming nations shall awake,
And to their centre earth's old kingdoms shake.
Pontiff and prince, your sway
Must crumble from that day;
Before the loftier throne of Heaven
The hand is raised, the pledge is given-
One monarch to obey, one creed to own,
That monarch, GoD; that creed, His word alone.
Spread out earth's holiest records here, Of days and deeds to reverence dear; A zeal like this what pious legends tell? On kingdoms built
The worshippers of vulgar triumph dwell—
But what exploits with theirs shall page,
Who rose to bless their kind-
Who left their nation and their age,
Man's spirit to unbind?
Who boundless seas pass'd o'er, And boldly met, in every path, Famine, and frost, and heathen wrath,
To dedicate a shore,
Where Piety's meek train might breathe their vow, And seek their Maker with an unshamed brow; Where Liberty's glad race might proudly come, And set up there an everlasting home?
O, many a time it hath been told,
The story of those men of old.
For this fair Poetry hath wreathed
Her sweetest, purest flower;
For this proud Eloquence hath breathed
His strain of loftiest power;
Devotion, too, hath linger'd round
Each spot of consecrated ground,
And hill and valley bless'd;
There, where our banish'd fathers stray'd,
There, where they loved, and wept, and pray'd, There, where their ashes rest.
And never may they rest unsung,
While Liberty can find a tongue.
'Twine, Gratitude, a wreath for them,
More deathless than the diadem,
Who, to life's noblest end,
Gave up life's noblest powers,
And bade the legacy descend
Down, down to us and ours.
By centuries now the glorious hour we mark,
When to these shores they steer'd their shatter'd
And still, as other centuries melt away,
Shall other ages come to keep the day.
When we are dust, who gather round this spot,
Our joys, our griefs, our very names forgot,
Here shall the dwellers of the land be seen,
To keep the memory of the Pilgrims green.
Nor here alone their praises shall go round,
Nor here alone their virtues shall abound-
Broad as the empire of the free shall spread,
Far as the foot of man shall dare to tread,
Where oar hath never dipp'd, where human tongue
Hath never through the woods of ages rung,
There, where the eagle's scream and wild wolf's cry
Keep ceaseless day and night through earth and sky,
Even there, in after time, as toil and taste
Go forth in gladness to redeem the waste,
Even there shall rise, as grateful myriads throng,
Faith's holy prayer and Freedom's joyful song;
There shall the flame that flash'd from yonder Rock,
Light up the land, till nature's final shock.
Yet while, by life's endearments crown'd,
To mark this day we gather round,
And to our nation's founders raise
The voice of gratitude and praise,
Shall not one line lament that lion race,
For us struck out from sweet creation's face?
Alas! alas! for them-those fated bands,
Whose monarch tread was on these broad, green
lands;
Our fathers call'd them savage-them, whose bread,
In the dark hour, those famish'd fathers fed;
We call them savage, we,
Who hail the struggling free
Of every clime and hue;
We, who would save
The branded slave,
And give him liberty he never knew;
We, who but now have caught the tale
That turns each listening tyrant pale,
And bless'd the winds and waves that bore
The tidings to our kindred shore;
The triumph-tidings pealing from that land
Where up in arms insulted legions stand;
There, gathering round his bold compeers,
Where He, our own, our welcomed One,
Riper in glory than in years,
Down from his forfeit throne
A craven monarch hurl'd,
And spurn'd him forth, a proverb to the world!
Beneath the pillar'd dome,
We seek our God in prayer;
Through boundless woods he loved to roam,
And the Great Spirit worshipp'd there.
But one, one fellow-throb with us he felt;
To one divinity with us he knelt;
Freedom, the self-same Freedom we adore,
Bade him defend his violated shore.
He saw the cloud, ordain'd to grow,
And burst upon his hills in wo;
He saw his people withering by,
Beneath the invader's evil eye;
Strange feet were trampling on his father's bones;
At midnight hour he woke to gaze
Upon his happy cabin's blaze,
And listen to his children's dying groans.
He saw-and, maddening at the sight,
Gave his bold bosom to the fight;
To tiger rage his soul was driven;
Mercy was not-nor sought nor given;
The pale man from his lands must fly;
He would be free-or he would die.
And was this savage? say,
Ye ancient few,
Who struggled through Young Freedom's trial-dayWhat first your sleeping wrath awoke? On your own shores war's larum broke; What turn'd to gall even kindred blood? Round your own homes the oppressor stood; This every warm affection chill'd, This every heart with vengeance thrill'd, And strengthen'd every hand;
From mound to mound The word went round-"Death for our native land!"
Ye mothers, too, breathe ye no sigh
For them who thus could dare to die?
Are all your own dark hours forgot,
Of soul-sick suffering here?
Your pangs, as, from yon mountain spot,
Death spoke in every booming shot
That knell'd upon your ear?
How oft that gloomy, glorious tale ye tell,
As round your knees your children's children hang,
Of them, the gallant ones, ye loved so well,
Who to the conflict for their country sprang!
In pride, in all the pride of wo,
Ye tell of them, the brave laid low,
Who for their birth-place bled;
In pride, the pride of triumph then,
Ye tell of them, the matchless men,
From whom the invaders fled.
And ye, this holy place who throng,
The annual theme to hear,
And bid the exulting song
Sound their great names from year to year; Ye, who invoke the chisel's breathing grace, In marble majesty their forms to trace;
Ye, who the sleeping rocks would raise,
To guard their dust and speak their praise;
Ye, who, should some other band
With hostile foot defile the land,
Feel that ye like them would wake,
Like them the yoke of bondage break,
Nor leave a battle-blade undrawn,
Though every hill a sepulchre should yawn-
Say, have not ye one line for those,
One brother-line to spare,
Who rose but as your fathers rose,
And dared as ye would dare ?
Alas! for them--their day is o'er,
Their fires are out from hill and shore;
No more for them the wild deer bounds;
The plough is on their hunting-grounds;
The pale man's axe rings through their woods
The pale man's sail skims o'er their floods,
Their pleasant springs are dry;
Their children--look, by power oppress'd,
Beyond the mountains of the west,
Their children go-to die.
O, doubly lost! Oblivion's shadows close
Around their triumphs and their woes.
On other realms, whose suns have set,
Reflected radiance lingers yet;
There sage and bard have shed a light
That never shall go down in night;
There time-crown'd columns stand on high,
To tell of them who cannot die;
Even we, who then were nothing, kneel
In homage there, and join earth's general peal.
But the doom'd Indian leaves behind no trace,
To save his own, or serve another race;
With his frail breath his power has pass'd away,
His deeds, his thoughts are buried with his clay;
Nor lofty pile, nor glowing page
Shall link him to a future age,
Or give him with the past a rank;
His heraldry is but a broken bow,
His history but a tale of wrong and wo,
His very name must be a blank.
Cold, with the beast he slew, he sleeps;
O'er him no filial spirit weeps ;
No crowds throng round, no anthem-notes ascend,
To bless his coming and embalm his end;
Even that he lived, is for his conqueror's tongue;
By foes alone his death-song must be sung;
No chronicles but theirs shall tell
His mournful doom to future times;
May these upon his virtues dwell,
And in his fate forget his crimes.
Peace to the mingling dead!
Beneath the turf we tread,
Chief, pilgrim, patriot sleep.
All gone! how changed! and yet the same
As when Faith's herald bark first came
In sorrow o'er the deep.
Still, from his noonday height,
The sun looks down in light;
Along the trackless realms of space,
The stars still run their midnight race;
The same green valleys smile, the same rough shore
Still echoes to the same wild ocean's roar;-
But where the bristling night-wolf sprang
Upon his startled prey,
Where the fierce Indian's war-cry rang
Through many a bloody fray,
And where the stern old pilgrim pray'd
In solitude and gloom,
Where the bold patriot drew his blade,
And dared a patriot's doom,-
Behold! in Liberty's unclouded blaze
We lift our heads, a race of other days.
All gone! the wild beast's lair is trodden out;
Proud temples stand in beauty there;
Our children raise their merry shout
Where once the death-whoop vex'd the air. The pilgrim-seek yon ancient mound of graves, Beneath that chapel's holy shade;
Ask, where the breeze the long grass waves,
Who, who within that spot are laid:
The patriot-go, to Fame's proud mount repair;
The tardy pile, slow rising there,
With tongueless eloquence shall tell
Of them who for their country fell.
All gone! 't is ours, the goodly land-
Look round-the heritage behold;
Go forth-upon the mountains stand;
Then, if ye can, be cold.
See living vales by living waters bless'd;
Their wealth see earth's dark caverns yield;
See ocean roll, in glory dress'd,
For all a treasure, and round all a shield;
Hark to the shouts of praise
Rejoicing millions raise;
Gaze on the spires that rise
To point them to the skies,
Unfearing and unfear'd;
Then, if ye can, O, then forget
To whom ye owe the sacred debt
The pilgrim race revered!
The men who set Faith's burning lights
Upon these everlasting heights,
To guide their children through the years of time;
The men that glorious law who taught,
Unshrinking liberty of thought,
And roused the nations with the truth sublime.
Forget? No, never-ne'er shall die
Those names to memory dear; I read the promise in each eye That beams upon me here. Descendants of a twice-recorded race! Long may ye here your lofty lineage grace. 'Tis not for you home's tender tie
To rend, and brave the waste of waves;
'Tis not for you to rouse and die, Or yield, and live a line of slaves.
The deeds of danger and of death are done:
Upheld by inward power alone,
Unhonour'd by the world's loud tongue,
"T is yours to do unknown,
And then to die unsung.
To other days, to other men belong
The penman's plaudit, and the poet's song;
Enough for glory has been wrought;
By you be humbler praises sought;
In peace and truth life's journey run,
And keep unsullied what your fathers won.
Take then my prayer, ye dwellers of this spot!
Be yours a noiseless and a guiltless lot.
I plead not that ye bask
In the rank beams of vulgar fame;
To light your steps, I ask
A purer and a holier flame.
No bloated growth I supplicate for you,
No pining multitude, no pamper'd few;
'Tis not alone to coffer gold,
Nor spreading borders to behold;
'Tis not fast-swelling crowds to win,
The refuse-ranks of want and sin.
This be the kind decree:
Be ye by goodness crown'd;
Revered, though not renown'd;
Poor, if Heaven will, but free!
Free from the tyrants of the hour,
The clans of wealth, the clans of power,
The coarse, cold scorners of their God;
Free from the taint of sin,
The leprosy that feeds within,
And free, in mercy, from the bigot's rod.
The sceptre's might, the crosier's pride, Ye do not fear;
No conquest blade, in life-blood dyed,
Drops terror here,-
Let there not lurk a subtler snare,
For wisdom's footsteps to beware.
The shackle and the stake
Our fathers fled;
Ne'er may their children wake
A fouler wrath, a deeper dread;
Ne'er may the craft that fears the flesh to bind,
Lock its hard fetters on the mind;
Quench'd be the fiercer flame
That kindles with a name;
The pilgrim's faith, the pilgrim's zeal,
Let more than pilgrim kindness scal;
Be purity of life the test,
Leave to the heart, to heaven, the rest.
So, when our children turn the page, To ask what triumphs mark'd our ageWhat we achieved to challenge praise, Through the long line of future daysThis let them read, and hence instruction draw: "Here were the many bless'd,
Here found the virtues rest,
Faith link'd with Love, and Liberty with Law;
|