At Sundown | Page 4

THE MERRIMAC.
Make, for he loved thee well, our Merrimac,?From wave and shore a low and long lament?For him, whose last look sought thee, as he went?The unknown way from which no step comes back.?And ye, O ancient pine-trees, at whose feet?He watched in life the sunset's reddening glow,?Let the soft south wind through your needles blow?A fitting requiem tenderly and sweet!?No fonder lover of all lovely things?Shall walk where once he walked, no smile more glad?Greet friends than his who friends in all men had,?Whose pleasant memory, to that Island clings,?Where a dear mourner in the home he left?Of love's sweet solace cannot be bereft.
BURNING DRIFT-WOOD
Before my drift-wood fire I sit,?And see, with every waif I burn,?Old dreams and fancies coloring it,?And folly's unlaid ghosts return.
O ships of mine, whose swift keels cleft?The enchanted sea on which they sailed,?Are these poor fragments only left?Of vain desires and hopes that failed?
Did I not watch from them the light?Of sunset on my towers in Spain,?And see, far off, uploom in sight?The Fortunate Isles I might not gain?
Did sudden lift of fog reveal?Arcadia's vales of song and spring,?And did I pass, with grazing keel,?The rocks whereon the sirens sing?
Have I not drifted hard upon?The unmapped regions lost to man,?The cloud-pitched tents of Prester John,?The palace domes of Kubla Khan?
Did land winds blow from jasmine flowers,?Where Youth the ageless Fountain fills??Did Love make sign from rose blown bowers,?And gold from Eldorado's hills?
Alas! the gallant ships, that sailed?On blind Adventure's errand sent,?Howe'er they laid their courses, failed?To reach the haven of Content.
And of my ventures, those alone?Which Love had freighted, safely sped,?Seeking a good beyond my own,?By clear-eyed Duty piloted.
O mariners, hoping still to meet?The luck Arabian voyagers met,?And find in Bagdad's moonlit street,?Haroun al Raschid walking yet,
Take with you, on your Sea of Dreams,?The fair, fond fancies dear to youth.?I turn from all that only seems,?And seek the sober grounds of truth.
What matter that it is not May,?That birds have flown, and trees are bare,?That darker grows the shortening day,?And colder blows the wintry air!
The wrecks of passion and desire,?The castles I no more rebuild,?May fitly feed my drift-wood fire,?And warm the hands that age has chilled.
Whatever perished with my ships,?I only know the best remains;?A song of praise is on my lips?For losses which are now my gains.
Heap high my hearth! No worth is lost;?No wisdom with the folly dies.?Burn on, poor shreds, your holocaust?Shall be my evening sacrifice.
Far more than all I dared to dream,?Unsought before my door I see;?On wings of fire and steeds of steam?The world's great wonders come to me,
And holier signs, unmarked before,?Of Love to seek and Power to save,--?The righting of the wronged and poor,?The man evolving from the slave;
And life, no longer chance or fate,?Safe in the gracious Fatherhood.?I fold o'er-wearied hands and wait,?In full assurance of the good.
And well the waiting time must be,?Though brief or long its granted days,?If Faith and Hope and Charity?Sit by my evening hearth-fire's blaze.
And with them, friends whom Heaven has spared,?Whose love my heart has comforted,?And, sharing all my joys, has shared?My tender memories of the dead,--
Dear souls who left us lonely here,?Bound on their last, long voyage, to whom?We, day by day, are drawing near,?Where every bark has sailing room!
I know the solemn monotone?Of waters calling unto me?I know from whence the airs have blown?That whisper of the Eternal Sea.
As low my fires of drift-wood burn,?I hear that sea's deep sounds increase,?And, fair in sunset light, discern?Its mirage-lifted Isles of Peace.
O. W. HOLMES ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTH-DAY.
Climbing a path which leads back never more?We heard behind his footsteps and his cheer;?Now, face to face, we greet him standing here?Upon the lonely summit of Fourscore?Welcome to us, o'er whom the lengthened day?Is closing and the shadows colder grow,?His genial presence, like an afterglow,?Following the one just vanishing away.?Long be it ere the table shall be set?For the last breakfast of the Autocrat,?And love repeat with smiles and tears thereat?His own sweet songs that time shall not forget.?Waiting with us the call to come up higher,?Life is not less, the heavens are only higher!
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
From purest wells of English undefiled?None deeper drank than he, the New World's child,?Who in the language of their farm-fields spoke?The wit and wisdom of New England folk,?Shaming a monstrous wrong. The world-wide laugh?Provoked thereby might well have shaken half?The walls of Slavery down, ere yet the ball?And mine of battle overthrew them all.
HAVERHILL.
1640-1890.
Read at the Celebration of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the City, July 2, 1890.
O river winding to the sea!?We call the old time back to thee;?From forest paths and water-ways?The century-woven veil we raise.
The voices of to-day are dumb,?Unheard its sounds that go and come;?We listen, through long-lapsing years,?To footsteps of the pioneers.
Gone steepled town and cultured plain,?The wilderness