Occasional Poems | Page 5

Merrimac, and invited friends and guests in
other sections of the country. Its thoroughly enjoyable annual festivals
were held in the early summer on the pine-shaded, laurel-blossomed
slopes of the Newbury side of the river opposite Pleasant Valley in
Amesbury. The several poems called out by these gatherings are here
printed in sequence.
Once more on yonder laurelled height
The summer flowers have
budded;
Once more with summer's golden light
The vales of home
are flooded;
And once more, by the grace of Him
Of every good the
Giver,
We sing upon its wooded rim
The praises of our river,
Its pines above, its waves below,
The west-wind down it blowing,

As fair as when the young Brissot
Beheld it seaward flowing,--
And
bore its memory o'er the deep,
To soothe a martyr's sadness,
And
fresco, hi his troubled sleep,
His prison-walls with gladness.
We know the world is rich with streams
Renowned in song and story,


Whose music murmurs through our dreams
Of human love and
glory
We know that Arno's banks are fair,
And Rhine has castled
shadows,
And, poet-tuned, the Doon and Ayr
Go singing down
their meadows.
But while, unpictured and unsung
By painter or by poet,
Our river
waits the tuneful tongue
And cunning hand to show it,--
We only
know the fond skies lean
Above it, warm with blessing,
And the
sweet soul of our Undine
Awakes to our caressing.
No fickle sun-god holds the flocks
That graze its shores in keeping;

No icy kiss of Dian mocks
The youth beside it sleeping
Our
Christian river loveth most
The beautiful and human;
The heathen
streams of Naiads boast,
But ours of man and woman.
The miner in his cabin hears
The ripple we are hearing;
It whispers
soft to homesick ears
Around the settler's clearing
In Sacramento's
vales of corn,
Or Santee's bloom of cotton,
Our river by its
valley-born
Was never yet forgotten.
The drum rolls loud, the bugle fills
The summer air with clangor;

The war-storm shakes the solid hills
Beneath its tread of anger;

Young eyes that last year smiled in ours
Now point the rifle's barrel,

And hands then stained with fruits and flowers
Bear redder stains
of quarrel.
But blue skies smile, and flowers bloom on,
And rivers still keep
flowing,
The dear God still his rain and sun
On good and ill
bestowing.
His pine-trees whisper, "Trust and wait!"
His flowers
are prophesying
That all we dread of change or fate

His live is
underlying.
And thou, O Mountain-born!--no more
We ask the wise Allotter

Than for the firmness of thy shore,
The calmness of thy water,
The

cheerful lights that overlay,
Thy rugged slopes with beauty,
To
match our spirits to our day
And make a joy of duty.
1861.
REVISITED.
Read at "The Laurels," on the Merrimac, 6th month, 1865.
The roll of drums and the bugle's wailing
Vex the air of our vales-no
more;
The spear is beaten to hooks of pruning,
The share is the
sword the soldier wore!
Sing soft, sing low, our lowland river,
Under thy banks of laurel
bloom;
Softly and sweet, as the hour beseemeth,
Sing us the songs
of peace and home.
Let all the tenderer voices of nature
Temper the triumph and chasten
mirth,
Full of the infinite love and pity
For fallen martyr and
darkened hearth.
But to Him who gives us beauty for ashes,
And the oil of joy for
mourning long,
Let thy hills give thanks, and all thy waters
Break
into jubilant waves of song!
Bring us the airs of hills and forests,
The sweet aroma of birch and
pine,
Give us a waft of the north-wind laden
With sweethrier odors
and breath of kine!
Bring us the purple of mountain sunsets,
Shadows of clouds that rake
the hills,
The green repose of thy Plymouth meadows,
The gleam
and ripple of Campton rills.
Lead us away in shadow and sunshine,
Slaves of fancy, through all
thy miles,
The winding ways of Pemigewasset,
And
Winnipesaukee's hundred isles.
Shatter in sunshine over thy ledges,
Laugh in thy plunges from fall to

fall;
Play with thy fringes of elms, and darken
Under the shade of
the mountain wall.
The cradle-song of thy hillside fountains
Here in thy glory and
strength repeat;
Give us a taste of thy upland music,
Show us the
dance of thy silver feet.
Into thy dutiful life of uses
Pour the music and weave the flowers;

With the song of birds and bloom of meadows
Lighten and gladden
thy heart and ours.
Sing on! bring down, O lowland river,
The joy of the hills to the
waiting sea;
The wealth of the vales, the pomp of mountains,
The
breath of the woodlands, bear with thee.
Here, in the calm of thy seaward, valley,
Mirth and labor shall hold
their truce;
Dance of water and mill of grinding,
Both are beauty
and both are use.
Type of the Northland's strength and glory,
Pride and hope of our
home and race,--
Freedom lending to rugged labor
Tints of beauty
and lines of grace.
Once again, O beautiful river,
Hear our greetings and take our thanks;

Hither we come, as Eastern pilgrims
Throng to the Jordan's sacred
banks.
For though by the Master's feet untrodden,
Though never His word
has stilled thy waves,
Well for us may thy shores be holy,
With
Christian altars and saintly graves.
And well may we own thy hint and token
Of fairer