Before the Curfew | Page 4

Seven?Look on thee from the skies that hailed thy birth,--?How shall we welcome thee, whose home was heaven,?From thy celestial wanderings back to earth?
Science has kept her midnight taper burning?To greet thy coming with its vestal flame;?Friendship has murmured, "When art thou returning?"?"Not yet! Not yet!" the answering message came.
Thine was unstinted zeal, unchilled devotion,?While the blue realm had kingdoms to explore,--?Patience, like his who ploughed the unfurrowed ocean,?Till o'er its margin loomed San Salvador.
Through the long nights I see thee ever waking,?Thy footstool earth, thy roof the hemisphere,?While with thy griefs our weaker hearts are aching,?Firm as thine equatorial's rock-based pier.
The souls that voyaged the azure depths before thee?Watch with thy tireless vigils, all unseen,--?Tycho and Kepler bend benignant o'er thee,?And with his toy-like tube the Florentine,--
He at whose word the orb that bore him shivered?To find her central sovereignty disowned,?While the wan lips of priest and pontiff quivered,?Their jargon stilled, their Baal disenthroned.
Flamsteed and Newton look with brows unclouded,?Their strife forgotten with its faded scars,--?(Titans, who found the world of space too crowded?To walk in peace among its myriad stars.)
All cluster round thee,--seers of earliest ages,?Persians, Ionians, Mizraim's learned kings,?From the dim days of Shinar's hoary sages?To his who weighed the planet's fluid rings.
And we, for whom the northern heavens are lighted,?For whom the storm has passed, the sun has smiled,?Our clouds all scattered, all our stars united,?We claim thee, clasp thee, like a long-lost child.
Fresh from the spangled vault's o'er-arching splendor,?Thy lonely pillar, thy revolving dome,?In heartfelt accents, proud, rejoicing, tender,?We bid thee welcome to thine earthly home!
TO FREDERICK HENRY HEDGE
AT A DINNER GIVEN HIM ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY,?DECEMBER 12, 1885
With a bronze statuette of John of Bologna's Mercury,?presented by a few friends.
FIT emblem for the altar's side,?And him who serves its daily need,?The stay, the solace, and the guide?Of mortal men, whate'er his creed!
Flamen or Auspex, Priest or Bonze,?He feeds the upward-climbing fire,?Still teaching, like the deathless bronze,?Man's noblest lesson,--to aspire.
Hermes lies prone by fallen Jove,?Crushed are the wheels of Krishna's car,?And o'er Dodona's silent grove?Streams the white, ray from Bethlehem's star.
Yet snatched from Time's relentless clutch,?A godlike shape, that human hands?Have fired with Art's electric touch,?The herald of Olympus stands.
Ask not what ore the furnace knew;?Love mingled with the flowing mass,?And lends its own unchanging hue,?Like gold in Corinth's molten brass.
Take then our gift; this airy form?Whose bronze our benedictions gild,?The hearts of all its givers warm?With love by freezing years unchilled.
With eye undimmed, with strength unworn,?Still toiling in your Master's field,?Before you wave the growths unshorn,?Their ripened harvest yet to yield.
True servant of the Heavenly Sire,?To you our tried affection clings,?Bids you still labor, still aspire,?But clasps your feet and steals their wings.
TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
THIS is your month, the month of "perfect days,"?Birds in full song and blossoms all ablaze.?Nature herself your earliest welcome breathes,?Spreads every leaflet, every bower inwreathes;?Carpets her paths for your returning feet,?Puts forth her best your coming steps to greet;?And Heaven must surely find the earth in tune?When Home, sweet Home, exhales the breath of June.?These blessed days are waning all too fast,?And June's bright visions mingling with the past;
Lilacs have bloomed and faded, and the rose?Has dropped its petals, but the clover blows,?And fills its slender tubes with honeyed sweets;?The fields are pearled with milk-white margarites;?The dandelion, which you sang of old,?Has lost its pride of place, its crown of gold,?But still displays its feathery-mantled globe,?Which children's breath, or wandering winds unrobe.?These were your humble friends; your opened eyes?Nature had trained her common gifts to prize;?Not Cam nor Isis taught you to despise?Charles, with his muddy margin and the harsh,?Plebeian grasses of the reeking marsh.?New England's home-bred scholar, well you knew?Her soil, her speech, her people, through and through,?And loved them ever with the love that holds?All sweet, fond memories in its fragrant folds.?Though far and wide your winged words have flown,?Your daily presence kept you all our own,?Till, with a sorrowing sigh, a thrill of pride,?We heard your summons, and you left our side?For larger duties and for tasks untried.
How pleased the Spaniards for a while to claim?This frank Hidalgo with the liquid name,?Who stored their classics on his crowded shelves?And loved their Calderon as they did themselves!?Before his eyes what changing pageants pass!?The bridal feast how near the funeral mass!?The death-stroke falls,--the Misereres wail;?The joy-bells ring,--the tear-stained cheeks unveil,?While, as the playwright shifts his pictured scene,?The royal mourner crowns his second queen.
From Spain to Britain is a goodly stride,--?Madrid and London long-stretched leagues divide.?What if I send him, "Uncle S., says he,"?To my good cousin whom he calls "J. B."??A nation's servants go where they are sent,--?He heard his Uncle's orders, and he went.?By what enchantments, what alluring arts,?Our truthful James led captive British hearts,--?Whether his shrewdness made their statesmen halt,?Or if his learning found their