Poems of Nature, part 3, Reminiscent Poems | Page 3

save.
Yet, if the spirit gazing through?The vista of the past can view?One deed to Heaven and virtue true;
If through the wreck of wasted powers,?Of garlands wreathed from Folly's bowers,?Of idle aims and misspent hours,
The eye can note one sacred spot?By Pride and Self profaned not,?A green place in the waste of thought,
Where deed or word hath rendered less?The sum of human wretchedness,?And Gratitude looks forth to bless;
The simple burst of tenderest feeling?From sad hearts worn by evil-dealing,?For blessing on the hand of healing;
Better than Glory's pomp will be?That green and blessed spot to me,?A palm-shade in Eternity!
Something of Time which may invite?The purified and spiritual sight?To rest on with a calm delight.
And when the summer winds shall sweep?With their light wings my place of sleep,?And mosses round my headstone creep;
If still, as Freedom's rallying sign,?Upon the young heart's altars shine?The very fires they caught from mine;
If words my lips once uttered still,?In the calm faith and steadfast will?Of other hearts, their work fulfil;
Perchance with joy the soul may learn?These tokens, and its eye discern?The fires which on those altars burn;
A marvellous joy that even then,?The spirit hath its life again,?In the strong hearts of mortal men.
Take, lady, then, the gift I bring,?No gay and graceful offering,?No flower-smile of the laughing spring.
Midst the green buds of Youth's fresh May,?With Fancy's leaf-enwoven bay,?My sad and sombre gift I lay.
And if it deepens in thy mind?A sense of suffering human-kind,--?The outcast and the spirit-blind;
Oppressed and spoiled on every side,?By Prejudice, and Scorn, and Pride,?Life's common courtesies denied;
Sad mothers mourning o'er their trust,?Children by want and misery nursed,?Tasting life's bitter cup at first;
If to their strong appeals which come?From fireless hearth, and crowded room,?And the close alley's noisome gloom,--
Though dark the hands upraised to thee?In mute beseeching agony,?Thou lend'st thy woman's sympathy;
Not vainly on thy gentle shrine,?Where Love, and Mirth, and Friendship twine?Their varied gifts, I offer mine.?1843.
THE PUMPKIN.
Oh, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun,?The vines of the gourd and the rich melon run,?And the rock and the tree and the cottage enfold,?With broad leaves all greenness and blossoms all gold,?Like that which o'er Nineveh's prophet once grew,?While he waited to know that his warning was true,?And longed for the storm-cloud, and listened in vain?For the rush of the whirlwind and red fire-rain.
On the banks of the Xenil the dark Spanish maiden?Comes up with the fruit of the tangled vine laden;?And the Creole of Cuba laughs out to behold?Through orange-leaves shining the broad spheres of gold;?Yet with dearer delight from his home in the North,?On the fields of his harvest the Yankee looks forth,?Where crook-necks are coiling and yellow fruit shines,?And the sun of September melts down on his vines.
Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West,?From North and from South come the pilgrim and guest,?When the gray-haired New-Englander sees round his board?The old broken links of affection restored,?When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,?And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before,?What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye??What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie?
Oh, fruit loved of boyhood! the old days recalling,?When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling! When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,?Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!?When we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts all in tune, Our chair a broad pumpkin,--our lantern the moon,?Telling tales of the fairy who travelled like steam,?In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team?Then thanks for thy present! none sweeter or better?E'er smoked from an oven or circled a platter!?Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine,?Brighter eyes never watched o'er its baking, than thine!?And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express,?Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less,?That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below,?And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow,?And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky?Golden-tinted and fair as thy own Pumpkin pie!?1844.
FORGIVENESS.
My heart was heavy, for its trust had been?Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong;?So, turning gloomily from my fellow-men,?One summer Sabbath day I strolled among?The green mounds of the village burial-place;?Where, pondering how all human love and hate?Find one sad level; and how, soon or late,?Wronged and wrongdoer, each with meekened face,?And cold hands folded over a still heart,?Pass the green threshold of our common grave,?Whither all footsteps tend, whence none depart,?Awed for myself, and pitying my race,?Our common sorrow, like a nighty wave,?Swept all my pride away, and trembling I forgave!?1846.
TO MY SISTER,
WITH A COPY OF "THE SUPERNATURALISM OF NEW ENGLAND."
The work referred to was a series of papers under this title, contributed to the Democratic Review and afterward collected into a volume, in which I noted some of the superstitions