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

the mows,

Looked on them through the great elm--boughs!
On Mabel's curls of golden hair,
On Esek's shaggy strength it fell;

And the wind whispered, "It is well!"
THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL SEWALL.
The prose version of this prophecy is to be found in Sewall's The New
Heaven upon the New Earth, 1697, quoted in Joshua Coffin's History
of Newbury. Judge Sewall's father, Henry Sewall, was one of the
pioneers of Newbury.
UP and down the village streets
Strange are the forms my fancy
meets,
For the thoughts and things of to-day are hid,
And through
the veil of a closed lid
The ancient worthies I see again
I hear the
tap of the elder's cane,
And his awful periwig I see,
And the silver
buckles of shoe and knee.
Stately and slow, with thoughtful air,
His
black cap hiding his whitened hair,
Walks the Judge of the great
Assize,
Samuel Sewall the good and wise.
His face with lines of
firmness wrought,
He wears the look of a man unbought,
Who
swears to his hurt and changes not;
Yet, touched and softened
nevertheless
With the grace of Christian gentleness,
The face that a

child would climb to kiss!
True and tender and brave and just,
That
man might honor and woman trust.
Touching and sad, a tale is told,
Like a penitent hymn of the Psalmist
old,
Of the fast which the good man lifelong kept to
With a
haunting sorrow that never slept,
As the circling year brought round
the time
Of an error that left the sting of crime,
When he sat on the
bench of the witchcraft courts,
With the laws of Moses and Hale's
Reports,
And spake, in the name of both, the word
That gave the
witch's neck to the cord,
And piled the oaken planks that pressed

The feeble life from the warlock's breast!
All the day long, from
dawn to dawn,
His door was bolted, his curtain drawn;
No foot on
his silent threshold trod,
No eye looked on him save that of God,
As
he baffled the ghosts of the dead with charms
Of penitent tears, and
prayers, and psalms,
And, with precious proofs from the sacred word

Of the boundless pity and love of the Lord,
His faith confirmed and
his trust renewed
That the sin of his ignorance, sorely rued,
Might
be washed away in the mingled flood
Of his human sorrow and
Christ's dear blood!
Green forever the memory be
Of the Judge of the old Theocracy,

Whom even his errors glorified,
Like a far-seen, sunlit mountain-side

By the cloudy shadows which o'er it glide I
Honor and praise to the
Puritan
Who the halting step of his age outran,
And, seeing the
infinite worth of man
In the priceless gift the Father gave,
In the
infinite love that stooped to save,
Dared not brand his brother a slave

"Who doth such wrong," he was wont to say,
In his own quaint,
picture-loving way,
"Flings up to Heaven a hand-grenade
Which
God shall cast down upon his head!"
Widely as heaven and hell, contrast

That brave old jurist of the past

And the cunning trickster and knave of courts
Who the holy features
of Truth distorts,
Ruling as right the will of the strong,
Poverty,
crime, and weakness wrong;
Wide-eared to power, to the wronged

and weak
Deaf as Egypt's gods of leek;
Scoffing aside at party's nod

Order of nature and law of God;
For whose dabbled ermine respect
were waste,
Reverence folly, and awe misplaced;
Justice of whom 't
were vain to seek
As from Koordish robber or Syrian Sheik!
Oh,
leave the wretch to his bribes and sins;
Let him rot in the web of lies
he spins!
To the saintly soul of the early day,
To the Christian judge,
let us turn and say
"Praise and thanks for an honest man!--
Glory to
God for the Puritan!"
I see, far southward, this quiet day,
The hills of Newbury rolling
away,
With the many tints of the season gay,
Dreamily blending in
autumn mist
Crimson, and gold, and amethyst.
Long and low, with
dwarf trees crowned,
Plum Island lies, like a whale aground,
A
stone's toss over the narrow sound.
Inland, as far as the eye can go,

The hills curve round like a bended bow;
A silver arrow from out
them sprung,
I see the shine of the Quasycung;
And, round and
round, over valley and hill,
Old roads winding, as old roads will,

Here to a ferry, and there to a mill;
And glimpses of chimneys and
gabled eaves,
Through green elm arches and maple leaves,--
Old
homesteads sacred to all that can
Gladden or sadden the heart of man,

Over whose thresholds of oak and stone
Life and Death have come
and gone
There pictured tiles in the fireplace show,
Great beams
sag from the ceiling low,
The dresser glitters with polished wares,

The long clock ticks on the foot-worn stairs,
And the low, broad
chimney shows the crack
By the earthquake made a century back.

Up from their midst springs the village spire
With the crest of its cock
in the sun afire;
Beyond are orchards and planting lands,
And great
salt marshes and glimmering sands,
And, where north and south the
coast-lines run,
The blink of the sea in breeze and sun!
I see it all like a chart unrolled,
But my thoughts are full of the past
and old,
I hear the tales