Bunker Hill and Other Poems | Page 4

in extremities,?And I don't mind so much if a comfort to them it is;?'T is a pleasure to please, and the straw that can tickle us Is a source of enjoyment though slightly ridiculous.
I am up for a--something--and since I 've begun with it,?I must give you a toast now before I have done with it.?Let me pump at my wits as they pumped the Cochituate?That moistened--it may be--the very last bit you ate:?Success to our publishers, authors and editors?To our debtors good luck,--pleasant dreams to our creditors; May the monthly grow yearly, till all we are groping for?Has reached the fulfilment we're all of us hoping for;?Till the bore through the tunnel--it makes me let off a sigh To think it may possibly ruin my prophecy--?Has been punned on so often 't will never provoke again?One mild adolescent to make the old joke again;?Till abstinent, all-go-to-meeting society?Has forgotten the sense of the word inebriety;?Till the work that poor Hannah and Bridget and Phillis do?The humanized, civilized female gorillas do;?Till the roughs, as we call them, grown loving and dutiful, Shall worship the true and the pure and the beautiful,?And, preying no longer as tiger and vulture do,?All read the "Atlantic" as persons of culture do!
"LUCY"
FOR HER GOLDEN WEDDING, OCTOBER 18, 1875
"Lucy."--The old familiar name?Is now, as always, pleasant,?Its liquid melody the same?Alike in past or present;?Let others call you what they will,?I know you'll let me use it;?To me your name is Lucy still,?I cannot bear to lose it.
What visions of the past return?With Lucy's image blended!?What memories from the silent urn?Of gentle lives long ended!?What dreams of childhood's fleeting morn,?What starry aspirations,?That filled the misty days unborn?With fancy's coruscations!
Ah, Lucy, life has swiftly sped?From April to November;?The summer blossoms all are shed?That you and I remember;?But while the vanished years we share?With mingling recollections,?How all their shadowy features wear?The hue of old affections!
Love called you. He who stole your heart?Of sunshine half bereft us;?Our household's garland fell apart?The morning that you left us;?The tears of tender girlhood streamed?Through sorrow's opening sluices;?Less sweet our garden's roses seemed,?Less blue its flower-de-luces.
That old regret is turned to smiles,?That parting sigh to greeting;?I send my heart-throb fifty miles?Through every line 't is beating;?God grant you many and happy years,?Till when the last has crowned you?The dawn of endless day appears,?And heaven is shining round you!
October 11, 1875.
HYMN
FOR THE INAUGURATION OF THE STATUE OF GOVERNOR?ANDREW, HINGHAM, OCTOBER 7, 1875
BEHOLD the shape our eyes have known!?It lives once more in changeless stone;?So looked in mortal face and form?Our guide through peril's deadly storm.
But hushed the beating heart we knew,?That heart so tender, brave, and true,?Firm as the rooted mountain rock,?Pure as the quarry's whitest block!
Not his beneath the blood-red star?To win the soldier's envied sear;?Unarmed he battled for the right,?In Duty's never-ending fight.
Unconquered will, unslumbering eye,?Faith such as bids the martyr die,?The prophet's glance, the master's hand?To mould the work his foresight planned,
These were his gifts; what Heaven had lent?For justice, mercy, truth, he spent,?First to avenge the traitorous blow,?And first to lift the vanquished foe.
Lo, thus he stood; in danger's strait?The pilot of the Pilgrim State!?Too large his fame for her alone,--?A nation claims him as her own!
A MEMORIAL TRIBUTE
READ AT THE MEETING HELD AT MUSIC HALL,?FEBRUARY 8, 1876, IN MEMORY OF DR. SAMUEL G. HOWE
I.
LEADER of armies, Israel's God,?Thy soldier's fight is won!?Master, whose lowly path he trod,?Thy servant's work is done!
No voice is heard from Sinai's steep?Our wandering feet to guide;?From Horeb's rock no waters leap;?No Jordan's waves divide;
No prophet cleaves our western sky?On wheels of whirling fire;?No shepherds hear the song on high?Of heaven's angelic choir
Yet here as to the patriarch's tent?God's angel comes a guest;?He comes on heaven's high errand sent,?In earth's poor raiment drest.
We see no halo round his brow?Till love its own recalls,?And, like a leaf that quits the bough,?The mortal vesture falls.
In autumn's chill declining day,?Ere winter's killing frost,?The message came; so passed away?The friend our earth has lost.
Still, Father, in thy love we trust;?Forgive us if we mourn?The saddening hour that laid in dust?His robe of flesh outworn.
II.
How long the wreck-strewn journey seems?To reach the far-off past?That woke his youth from peaceful dreams?With Freedom's trumpet-blast
Along her classic hillsides rung?The Paynim's battle-cry,?And like a red-cross knight he sprung?For her to live or die.
No trustier service claimed the wreath?For Sparta's bravest son;?No truer soldier sleeps beneath?The mound of Marathon;
Yet not for him the warrior's grave?In front of angry foes;?To lift, to shield, to help, to save,?The holier task he chose.
He touched the eyelids of the blind,?And lo! the veil withdrawn,?As o'er the midnight of the mind?He led the light of dawn.
He asked not whence the fountains roll?No traveller's foot has found,?But mapped the desert of the soul?Untracked by sight or sound.
What prayers have reached the sapphire throne,?By