Before the Curfew | Page 3

stars at dawn;?Crossed from the roll of life their cherished names,?And memory's pictures fading in their frames;?Yet life is lovelier for these transient gleams?Of buried friendships; blest is he who dreams!
OUR DEAD SINGER
H. W. L.
PRIDE of the sister realm so long our own,?We claim with her that spotless fame of thine,?White as her snow and fragrant as her pine!?Ours was thy birthplace, but in every zone?Some wreath of song thy liberal hand has thrown?Breathes perfume from its blossoms, that entwine?Where'er the dewdrops fall, the sunbeams shine,?On life's long path with tangled cares o'ergrown.?Can Art thy truthful counterfeit command,--?The silver-haloed features, tranquil, mild,--?Soften the lips of bronze as when they smiled,?Give warmth and pressure to the marble hand??Seek the lost rainbow in the sky it spanned?Farewell, sweet Singer! Heaven reclaims its child.
Carved from the block or cast in clinging mould,?Will grateful Memory fondly try her best?The mortal vesture from decay to wrest;?His look shall greet us, calm, but ah, how cold!?No breath can stir the brazen drapery's fold,?No throb can heave the statue's stony breast;?"He is not here, but risen," will stand confest?In all we miss, in all our eyes behold.?How Nature loved him! On his placid brow,?Thought's ample dome, she set the sacred sign?That marks the priesthood of her holiest shrine,?Nor asked a leaflet from the laurel's bough?That envious Time might clutch or disallow,?To prove her chosen minstrel's song divine.
On many a saddened hearth the evening fire?Burns paler as the children's hour draws near,--?That joyous hour his song made doubly dear,--?And tender memories touch the faltering choir.?He sings no more on earth; our vain desire?Aches for the voice we loved so long to hear?In Dorian flute-notes breathing soft and clear,--?The sweet contralto that could never tire.?Deafened with listening to a harsher strain,?The Maenad's scream, the stark barbarian's cry,?Still for those soothing, loving tones we sigh;?Oh, for our vanished Orpheus once again!?The shadowy silence hears us call in vain!?His lips are hushed; his song shall never die.
TWO POEMS TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
ON HER SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY, JUNE 14, 1882
I. AT THE SUMMIT
SISTER, we bid you welcome,--we who stand?On the high table-land;?We who have climbed life's slippery Alpine slope,?And rest, still leaning on the staff of hope,?Looking along the silent Mer de Glace,?Leading our footsteps where the dark crevasse?Yawns in the frozen sea we all must pass,--?Sister, we clasp your hand!
Rest with us in the hour that Heaven has lent?Before the swift descent.?Look! the warm sunbeams kiss the glittering ice;?See! next the snow-drift blooms the edelweiss;?The mated eagles fan the frosty air;?Life, beauty, love, around us everywhere,?And, in their time, the darkening hours that bear?Sweet memories, peace, content.
Thrice welcome! shining names our missals show?Amid their rubrics' glow,?But search the blazoned record's starry line,?What halo's radiance fills the page like thine??Thou who by some celestial clue couldst find?The way to all the hearts of all mankind,?On thee, already canonized, enshrined,?What more can Heaven bestow!
II. THE WORLD'S HOMAGE
IF every tongue that speaks her praise?For whom I shape my tinkling phrase?Were summoned to the table,?The vocal chorus that would meet?Of mingling accents harsh or sweet,?From every land and tribe, would beat?The polyglots at Babel.
Briton and Frenchman, Swede and Dane,?Turk, Spaniard, Tartar of Ukraine,?Hidalgo, Cossack, Cadi,?High Dutchman and Low Dutchman, too,?The Russian serf, the Polish Jew,?Arab, Armenian, and Mantchoo,?Would shout, "We know the lady!"
Know her! Who knows not Uncle Tom?And her he learned his gospel from?Has never heard of Moses;?Full well the brave black hand we know?That gave to freedom's grasp the hoe?That killed the weed that used to grow?Among the Southern roses.
When Archimedes, long ago,?Spoke out so grandly, "dos pou sto--?Give me a place to stand on,?I'll move your planet for you, now,"--?He little dreamed or fancied how?The sto_ at last should find its _pou?For woman's faith to land on.
Her lever was the wand of art,?Her fulcrum was the human heart,?Whence all unfailing aid is;?She moved the earth! Its thunders pealed,?Its mountains shook, its temples reeled,?The blood-red fountains were unsealed,?And Moloch sunk to Hades.
All through the conflict, up and down?Marched Uncle Tom and Old John Brown,?One ghost, one form ideal;?And which was false and which was true,?And which was mightier of the two,?The wisest sibyl never knew,?For both alike were real.
Sister, the holy maid does well?Who counts her beads in convent cell,?Where pale devotion lingers;?But she who serves the sufferer's needs,?Whose prayers are spelt in loving deeds,?May trust the Lord will count her beads?As well as human fingers.
When Truth herself was Slavery's slave,?Thy hand the prisoned suppliant gave?The rainbow wings of fiction.?And Truth who soared descends to-day?Bearing an angel's wreath away,?Its lilies at thy feet to lay?With Heaven's own benediction.
A WELCOME TO DR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD
ON HIS RETURN FROM SOUTH AMERICA
AFTER FIFTEEN YEARS DEVOTED TO CATALOGUING THE?STARS OF THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE
Read at the Dinner given at the Hotel Vendome, May 6,1885.
ONCE more Orion and the sister