At Sundown | Page 5

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 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