Occasional Poems | Page 4

circles sweep on,
Till the low-rippled murmurs along
the shores run,
And the dark and dead waters leap glad in the sun.
Meanwhile shall we learn, in our ease, to forget
To the martyrs of
Truth and of Freedom our debt?--
Hide their words out of sight, like
the garb that they wore, And for Barclay's Apology offer one more?
Shall we fawn round the priestcraft that glutted the shears, And
festooned the stocks with our grandfathers' ears?
Talk of Woolman's
unsoundness? count Penn heterodox?
And take Cotton Mather in
place of George Fox?

Make our preachers war-chaplains? quote Scripture to take
The
hunted slave back, for Onesimus' sake?
Go to burning church-candles,
and chanting in choir,
And on the old meeting-house stick up a spire?
No! the old paths we'll keep until better are shown,
Credit good
where we find it, abroad or our own;
And while "Lo here" and "Lo
there" the multitude call,
Be true to ourselves, and do justice to all.
The good round about us we need not refuse,
Nor talk of our Zion as
if we were Jews;
But why shirk the badge which our fathers have
worn,
Or beg the world's pardon for having been born?
We need not pray over the Pharisee's prayer,
Nor claim that our
wisdom is Benjamin's share;
Truth to us and to others is equal and
one
Shall we bottle the free air, or hoard up the sun?
Well know we our birthright may serve but to show
How the meanest
of weeds in the richest soil grow;
But we need not disparage the good
which we hold;
Though the vessels be earthen, the treasure is gold!
Enough and too much of the sect and the name.
What matters our
label, so truth be our aim?
The creed may be wrong, but the life may
be true,
And hearts beat the same under drab coats or blue.
So the man be a man, let him worship, at will,
In Jerusalem's courts,
or on Gerizim's hill.
When she makes up her jewels, what cares yon
good town
For the Baptist of Wayland, the Quaker of Brown?
And this green, favored island, so fresh and seablown,
When she
counts up the worthies her annals have known,
Never waits for the
pitiful gaugers of sect
To measure her love, and mete out her respect.
Three shades at this moment seem walking her strand,
Each with
head halo-crowned, and with palms in his hand,--
Wise Berkeley,
grave Hopkins, and, smiling serene
On prelate and puritan, Channing

is seen.
One holy name bearing, no longer they need
Credentials of party, and
pass-words of creed
The new song they sing hath a threefold accord,

And they own one baptism, one faith, and one Lord!
But the golden sands run out: occasions like these
Glide swift into
shadow, like sails on the seas
While we sport with the mosses and
pebbles ashore,
They lessen and fade, and we see them no more.
Forgive me, dear friends, if my vagrant thoughts seem
Like a
school-boy's who idles and plays with his theme.
Forgive the light
measure whose changes display
The sunshine and rain of our brief
April day.
There are moments in life when the lip and the eye
Try the question
of whether to smile or to cry;
And scenes and reunions that prompt
like our own
The tender in feeling, the playful in tone.
I, who never sat down with the boys and the girls
At the feet of your
Slocums, and Cartlands, and Earles,--
By courtesy only permitted to
lay
On your festival's altar my poor gift, to-day,--
I would joy in your joy: let me have a friend's part
In the warmth of
your welcome of hand and of heart,--
On your play-ground of
boyhood unbend the brow's care,
And shift the old burdens our
shoulders must bear.
Long live the good School! giving out year by year
Recruits to true
manhood and womanhood dear
Brave boys, modest maidens, in
beauty sent forth,
The living epistles and proof of its worth!
In and out let the young life as steadily flow
As in broad Narragansett
the tides come and go;
And its sons and its daughters in prairie and
town
Remember its honor, and guard its renown.

Not vainly the gift of its founder was made;
Not prayerless the stones
of its corner were laid
The blessing of Him whom in secret they
sought
Has owned the good work which the fathers have wrought.
To Him be the glory forever! We bear
To the Lord of the Harvest our
wheat with the tare.
What we lack in our work may He find in our
will,
And winnow in mercy our good from the ill!
OUR RIVER.
FOR A SUMMER FESTIVAL AT "THE LAURELS" ON THE
MERRIMAC.
Jean Pierre Brissot, the famous leader of the Girondist party in the
French Revolution, when a young man travelled extensively in the
United States. He visited the valley of the Merrimac, and speaks in
terms of admiration of the view from Moulton's hill opposite Amesbury.
The "Laurel Party" so called, as composed of ladies and gentlemen in
the lower valley of the