Narrative Poems, part 4, Mable Martin etc | Page 5

long as the annual sea-fowl know?Their time to come and their time to go;?As long as cattle shall roam at will?The green, grass meadows by Turkey Hill;?As long as sheep shall look from the side?Of Oldtown Hill on marishes wide,?And Parker River, and salt-sea tide;?As long as a wandering pigeon shall search?The fields below from his white-oak perch,?When the barley-harvest is ripe and shorn,?And the dry husks fall from the standing corn;?As long as Nature shall not grow old,?Nor drop her work from her doting hold,?And her care for the Indian corn forget,?And the yellow rows in pairs to set;--?So long shall Christians here be born,?Grow up and ripen as God's sweet corn!--?By the beak of bird, by the breath of frost,?Shall never a holy ear be lost,?But, husked by Death in the Planter's sight,?Be sown again in the fields of light!"
The Island still is purple with plums,?Up the river the salmon comes,?The sturgeon leaps, and the wild-fowl feeds?On hillside berries and marish seeds,--?All the beautiful signs remain,?From spring-time sowing to autumn rain?The good man's vision returns again!?And let us hope, as well we can,?That the Silent Angel who garners man?May find some grain as of old lie found?In the human cornfield ripe and sound,?And the Lord of the Harvest deign to own?The precious seed by the fathers sown!?1859.
THE RED RIPER VOYAGEUR.
OUT and in the river is winding?The links of its long, red chain,?Through belts of dusky pine-land?And gusty leagues of plain.
Only, at times, a smoke-wreath?With the drifting cloud-rack joins,--?The smoke of the hunting-lodges?Of the wild Assiniboins.
Drearily blows the north-wind?From the land of ice and snow;?The eyes that look are weary,?And heavy the hands that row.
And with one foot on the water,?And one upon the shore,?The Angel of Shadow gives warning?That day shall be no more.
Is it the clang of wild-geese??Is it the Indian's yell,?That lends to the voice of the north-wind?The tones of a far-off bell?
The voyageur smiles as he listens?To the sound that grows apace;?Well he knows the vesper ringing?Of the bells of St. Boniface.
The bells of the Roman Mission,?That call from their turrets twain,?To the boatman on the river,?To the hunter on the plain!
Even so in our mortal journey?The bitter north-winds blow,?And thus upon life's Red River?Our hearts, as oarsmen, row.
And when the Angel of Shadow?Rests his feet on wave and shore,?And our eyes grow dim with watching?And our hearts faint at the oar,
Happy is he who heareth?The signal of his release?In the bells of the Holy City,?The chimes of eternal peace!?1859
THE PREACHER.
George Whitefield, the celebrated preacher, died at Newburyport in 1770, and was buried under the church which has since borne his name.
ITS windows flashing to the sky,?Beneath a thousand roofs of brown,?Far down the vale, my friend and I?Beheld the old and quiet town;?The ghostly sails that out at sea?Flapped their white wings of mystery;?The beaches glimmering in the sun,?And the low wooded capes that run?Into the sea-mist north and south;?The sand-bluffs at the river's mouth;?The swinging chain-bridge, and, afar,?The foam-line of the harbor-bar.
Over the woods and meadow-lands?A crimson-tinted shadow lay,?Of clouds through which the setting day?Flung a slant glory far away.?It glittered on the wet sea-sands,?It flamed upon the city's panes,?Smote the white sails of ships that wore?Outward or in, and glided o'er?The steeples with their veering vanes!
Awhile my friend with rapid search?O'erran the landscape. "Yonder spire?Over gray roofs, a shaft of fire;?What is it, pray?"--"The Whitefield Church!?Walled about by its basement stones,?There rest the marvellous prophet's bones."?Then as our homeward way we walked,?Of the great preacher's life we talked;?And through the mystery of our theme?The outward glory seemed to stream,?And Nature's self interpreted?The doubtful record of the dead;?And every level beam that smote?The sails upon the dark afloat?A symbol of the light became,?Which touched the shadows of our blame,?With tongues of Pentecostal flame.
Over the roofs of the pioneers?Gathers the moss of a hundred years;?On man and his works has passed the change?Which needs must be in a century's range.?The land lies open and warm in the sun,?Anvils clamor and mill-wheels run,--?Flocks on the hillsides, herds on the plain,?The wilderness gladdened with fruit and grain!?But the living faith of the settlers old?A dead profession their children hold;?To the lust of office and greed of trade?A stepping-stone is the altar made.
The church, to place and power the door,?Rebukes the sin of the world no more,?Nor sees its Lord in the homeless poor.?Everywhere is the grasping hand,?And eager adding of land to land;?And earth, which seemed to the fathers meant?But as a pilgrim's wayside tent,--?A nightly shelter to fold away?When the Lord should call at the break of day,--?Solid and steadfast seems to be,?And Time has forgotten Eternity!
But fresh and green from the rotting roots?Of primal forests the young growth shoots;?From the death of the old the new proceeds,?And the life of truth from the rot