Bunker Hill and Other Poems | Page 4

scrawled in the languor of laziness--
I tell you they're squeezed by a
spasm of craziness,
A fit half as bad as the staggering vertigos
That
seize a poor fellow and down in the dirt he goes!
And therefore it chimes with the word's etytology
That the sons of
Apollo are great on apology,
For the writing of verse is a struggle
mysterious
And the gayest of rhymes is a matter that's serious.
For
myself, I'm relied on by friends 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