Before the Curfew | Page 6

scholar; in his looks?You read the titles of his learned books;?What classic lore those spidery crow's-feet speak!?What problems figure on that wrinkled cheek!?For never thought but left its stiffened trace,?Its fossil footprint, on the plastic face,?As the swift record of a raindrop stands,?Fixed on the tablet of the hardening sands.?On every face as on the written page?Each year renews the autograph of age;?One trait alone may wasting years defy,--?The fire still lingering in the poet's eye,?While Hope, the siren, sings her sweetest strain,--?Non omnis moriar is its proud refrain.
Sadly we gaze upon the vacant chair;?He who should claim its honors is not there,--?Otis, whose lips the listening crowd enthrall?That press and pack the floor of Boston's hall.?But Kirkland smiles, released from toil and care?Since the silk mantle younger shoulders wear,--?Quincy's, whose spirit breathes the selfsame fire?That filled the bosom of his youthful sire,?Who for the altar bore the kindled torch?To freedom's temple, dying in its porch.
Three grave professions in their sons appear,?Whose words well studied all well pleased will hear?Palfrey, ordained in varied walks to shine,?Statesman, historian, critic, and divine;?Solid and square behold majestic Shaw,?A mass of wisdom and a mine of law;?Warren, whose arm the doughtiest warriors fear,?Asks of the startled crowd to lend its ear,--?Proud of his calling, him the world loves best,?Not as the coming, but the parting guest.
Look on that form,--with eye dilating scan?The stately mould of nature's kingliest man!?Tower-like he stands in life's unfaded prime;?Ask you his name? None asks a second time?He from the land his outward semblance takes,?Where storm-swept mountains watch o'er slumbering lakes.?See in the impress which the body wears?How its imperial might the soul declares?The forehead's large expansion, lofty, wide,?That locks unsilvered vainly strive to hide;?The lines of thought that plough the sober cheek;?Lips that betray their wisdom ere they speak?In tones like answers from Dodona's grove;?An eye like Juno's when she frowns on Jove.?I look and wonder; will he be content--?This man, this monarch, for the purple meant--?The meaner duties of his tribe to share,?Clad in the garb that common mortals wear??Ah, wild Ambition, spread thy restless wings,?Beneath whose plumes the hidden cestrum stings;
Thou whose bold flight would leave earth's vulgar crowds,?And like the eagle soar above the clouds,?Must feel the pang that fallen angels know?When the red lightning strikes thee from below!
Less bronze, more silver, mingles in the mould?Of him whom next my roving eyes behold;?His, more the scholar's than the statesman's face,?Proclaims him born of academic race.?Weary his look, as if an aching brain?Left on his brow the frozen prints of pain;?His voice far-reaching, grave, sonorous, owns?A shade of sadness in its plaintive tones,?Yet when its breath some loftier thought inspires?Glows with a heat that every bosom fires.?Such Everett seems; no chance-sown wild flower knows?The full-blown charms of culture's double rose,--?Alas, how soon, by death's unsparing frost,?Its bloom is faded and its fragrance lost!
Two voices, only two, to earth belong,?Of all whose accents met the listening throng:?Winthrop, alike for speech and guidance framed,?On that proud day a twofold duty claimed;?One other yet,--remembered or forgot,--?Forgive my silence if I name him not.?Can I believe it? I, whose youthful voice?Claimed a brief gamut,--notes not over choice,?Stood undismayed before the solemn throng,?And propria voce sung that saucy song?Which even in memory turns my soul aghast,--?Felix audacia was the verdict cast.
What were the glory of these festal days?Shorn of their grand illumination's blaze??Night comes at last with all her starry train?To find a light in every glittering pane.?From "Harvard's" windows see the sudden flash,--?Old "Massachusetts" glares through every sash;?From wall to wall the kindling splendors run?Till all is glorious as the noonday sun.
How to the scholar's mind each object brings?What some historian tells, some poet sings!?The good gray teacher whom we all revered--?Loved, honored, laughed at, and by freshmen feared,?As from old "Harvard," where its light began,?From hall to hall the clustering splendors ran--?Took down his well-worn Eschylus and read,?Lit by the rays a thousand tapers shed,?How the swift herald crossed the leagues between?Mycenae's monarch and his faithless queen;?And thus he read,--my verse but ill displays?The Attic picture, clad in modern phrase
On Ida's summit flames the kindling pile,?And Lemnos answers from his rocky isle;?From Athos next it climbs the reddening skies,?Thence where the watch-towers of Macistus rise.?The sentries of Mesapius in their turn?Bid the dry heath in high piled masses burn,?Cithoeron's crag the crimson billows stain,?Far AEgiplanctus joins the fiery train.?Thus the swift courier through the pathless night?Has gained at length the Arachnoean height,?Whence the glad tidings, borne on wings offlame,?"Ilium has fallen!" reach the royal dame.
So ends the day; before the midnight stroke?The lights expiring cloud the air with smoke;?While these the toil of younger hands employ,?The slumbering Grecian dreams of smouldering Troy.
As to that hour with backward steps I turn,?Midway I pause; behold a funeral urn!?Ah, sad memorial! known but