At Sundown | Page 5

returns again,?The drear, untrodden solitude,?The gloom and mystery of the wood!
Once more the bear and panther prowl,?The wolf repeats his hungry howl,?And, peering through his leafy screen,?The Indian's copper face is seen.
We see, their rude-built huts beside,?Grave men and women anxious-eyed,?And wistful youth remembering still?Dear homes in England's Haverhill.
We summon forth to mortal view?Dark Passaquo and Saggahew,--?Wild chiefs, who owned the mighty sway?Of wizard Passaconaway.
Weird memories of the border town,?By old tradition handed down,?In chance and change before us pass?Like pictures in a magic glass,--
The terrors of the midnight raid,?The-death-concealing ambuscade,?The winter march, through deserts wild,?Of captive mother, wife, and child.
Ah! bleeding hands alone subdued?And tamed the savage habitude?Of forests hiding beasts of prey,?And human shapes as fierce as they.
Slow from the plough the woods withdrew,?Slowly each year the corn-lands grew;?Nor fire, nor frost, nor foe could kill?The Saxon energy of will.
And never in the hamlet's bound?Was lack of sturdy manhood found,?And never failed the kindred good?Of brave and helpful womanhood.
That hamlet now a city is,?Its log-built huts are palaces;?The wood-path of the settler's cow?Is Traffic's crowded highway now.
And far and wide it stretches still,?Along its southward sloping hill,?And overlooks on either hand?A rich and many-watered land.
And, gladdening all the landscape, fair?As Pison was to Eden's pair,?Our river to its valley brings?The blessing of its mountain springs.
And Nature holds with narrowing space,?From mart and crowd, her old-time grace,?And guards with fondly jealous arms?The wild growths of outlying farms.
Her sunsets on Kenoza fall,?Her autumn leaves by Saltonstall;?No lavished gold can richer make?Her opulence of hill and lake.
Wise was the choice which led out sires?To kindle here their household fires,?And share the large content of all?Whose lines in pleasant places fall.
More dear, as years on years advance,?We prize the old inheritance,?And feel, as far and wide we roam,?That all we seek we leave at home.
Our palms are pines, our oranges?Are apples on our orchard trees;?Our thrushes are our nightingales,?Our larks the blackbirds of our vales.
No incense which the Orient burns?Is sweeter than our hillside ferns;?What tropic splendor can outvie?Our autumn woods, our sunset sky?
If, where the slow years came and went,?And left not affluence, but content,?Now flashes in our dazzled eyes?The electric light of enterprise;
And if the old idyllic ease?Seems lost in keen activities,?And crowded workshops now replace?The hearth's and farm-field's rustic grace;
No dull, mechanic round of toil?Life's morning charm can quite despoil;?And youth and beauty, hand in hand,?Will always find enchanted land.
No task is ill where hand and brain?And skill and strength have equal gain,?And each shall each in honor hold,?And simple manhood outweigh gold.
Earth shall be near to Heaven when all?That severs man from man shall fall,?For, here or there, salvation's plan?Alone is love of God and man.
O dwellers by the Merrimac,?The heirs of centuries at your back,?Still reaping where you have not sown,?A broader field is now your own.
Hold fast your Puritan heritage,?But let the free thought of the age?Its light and hope and sweetness add?To the stern faith the fathers had.
Adrift on Time's returnless tide,?As waves that follow waves, we glide.?God grant we leave upon the shore?Some waif of good it lacked before;
Some seed, or flower, or plant of worth,?Some added beauty to the earth;?Some larger hope, some thought to make?The sad world happier for its sake.
As tenants of uncertain stay,?So may we live our little day?That only grateful hearts shall fill?The homes we leave in Haverhill.
The singer of a farewell rhyme,?Upon whose outmost verge of time?The shades of night are falling down,?I pray, God bless the good old town!
TO G. G.
AN AUTOGRAPH.
The daughter of Daniel Gurteen, Esq., delegate from Haverhill, England, to the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary celebration of Haverhill, Massachusetts. The Rev. John Ward of the former place and many of his old parishioners were the pioneer settlers of the new town on the Merrimac.
Graceful in name and in thyself, our river?None fairer saw in John Ward's pilgrim flock,?Proof that upon their century-rooted stock?The English roses bloom as fresh as ever.
Take the warm welcome of new friends with thee,?And listening to thy home's familiar chime?Dream that thou hearest, with it keeping time,?The bells on Merrimac sound across the sea.
Think of our thrushes, when the lark sings clear,?Of our sweet Mayflowers when the daisies bloom;?And bear to our and thy ancestral home?The kindly greeting of its children here.
Say that our love survives the severing strain;?That the New England, with the Old, holds fast?The proud, fond memories of a common past;?Unbroken still the ties of blood remain!
INSCRIPTION
For the bass-relief by Preston Powers, carved upon the huge boulder in Denver Park, Col., and representing the Last Indian and the Last Bison.
The eagle, stooping from yon snow-blown peaks,?For the wild hunter and the bison seeks,?In the changed world below; and finds alone?Their graven semblance in the eternal stone.
LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.
Inscription on her Memorial Tablet in Christ Church at Hartford,