Poems of Nature, part 3, Reminiscent Poems | Page 4

and folklore prevalent in New England. The volume has not been kept in print, but most of its contents are distributed in my Literary Recreations and Miscellanies.
Dear Sister! while the wise and sage?Turn coldly from my playful page,?And count it strange that ripened age?Should stoop to boyhood's folly;?I know that thou wilt judge aright?Of all which makes the heart more light,?Or lends one star-gleam to the night?Of clouded Melancholy.
Away with weary cares and themes!?Swing wide the moonlit gate of dreams!?Leave free once more the land which teems?With wonders and romances?Where thou, with clear discerning eyes,?Shalt rightly read the truth which lies?Beneath the quaintly masking guise?Of wild and wizard fancies.
Lo! once again our feet we set?On still green wood-paths, twilight wet,?By lonely brooks, whose waters fret?The roots of spectral beeches;?Again the hearth-fire glimmers o'er?Home's whitewashed wall and painted floor,?And young eyes widening to the lore?Of faery-folks and witches.
Dear heart! the legend is not vain?Which lights that holy hearth again,?And calling back from care and pain,?And death's funereal sadness,?Draws round its old familiar blaze?The clustering groups of happier days,?And lends to sober manhood's gaze?A glimpse of childish gladness.
And, knowing how my life hath been?A weary work of tongue and pen,?A long, harsh strife with strong-willed men,?Thou wilt not chide my turning?To con, at times, an idle rhyme,?To pluck a flower from childhood's clime,?Or listen, at Life's noonday chime,?For the sweet bells of Morning!?1847.
MY THANKS,
ACCOMPANYING MANUSCRIPTS PRESENTED TO A FRIEND.
'T is said that in the Holy Land?The angels of the place have blessed?The pilgrim's bed of desert sand,?Like Jacob's stone of rest.
That down the hush of Syrian skies?Some sweet-voiced saint at twilight sings?The song whose holy symphonies?Are beat by unseen wings;
Till starting from his sandy bed,?The wayworn wanderer looks to see?The halo of an angel's head?Shine through the tamarisk-tree.
So through the shadows of my way?Thy smile hath fallen soft and clear,?So at the weary close of day?Hath seemed thy voice of cheer.
That pilgrim pressing to his goal?May pause not for the vision's sake,?Yet all fair things within his soul?The thought of it shall wake:
The graceful palm-tree by the well,?Seen on the far horizon's rim;?The dark eyes of the fleet gazelle,?Bent timidly on him;
Each pictured saint, whose golden hair?Streams sunlike through the convent's gloom;?Pale shrines of martyrs young and fair,?And loving Mary's tomb;
And thus each tint or shade which falls,?From sunset cloud or waving tree,?Along my pilgrim path, recalls?The pleasant thought of thee.
Of one in sun and shade the same,?In weal and woe my steady friend,?Whatever by that holy name?The angels comprehend.
Not blind to faults and follies, thou?Hast never failed the good to see,?Nor judged by one unseemly bough?The upward-struggling tree.
These light leaves at thy feet I lay,--?Poor common thoughts on common things,?Which time is shaking, day by day,?Like feathers from his wings;
Chance shootings from a frail life-tree,?To nurturing care but little known,?Their good was partly learned of thee,?Their folly is my own.
That tree still clasps the kindly mould,?Its leaves still drink the twilight dew,?And weaving its pale green with gold,?Still shines the sunlight through.
There still the morning zephyrs play,?And there at times the spring bird sings,?And mossy trunk and fading spray?Are flowered with glossy wings.
Yet, even in genial sun and rain,?Root, branch, and leaflet fail and fade;?The wanderer on its lonely plain?Erelong shall miss its shade.
O friend beloved, whose curious skill?Keeps bright the last year's leaves and flowers,?With warm, glad, summer thoughts to fill?The cold, dark, winter hours
Pressed on thy heart, the leaves I bring?May well defy the wintry cold,?Until, in Heaven's eternal spring,?Life's fairer ones unfold.?1847.
REMEMBRANCE
WITH COPIES OF THE AUTHOR'S WRITINGS.
Friend of mine! whose lot was cast?With me in the distant past;?Where, like shadows flitting fast,
Fact and fancy, thought and theme,?Word and work, begin to seem?Like a half-remembered dream!
Touched by change have all things been,?Yet I think of thee as when?We had speech of lip and pen.
For the calm thy kindness lent?To a path of discontent,?Rough with trial and dissent;
Gentle words where such were few,?Softening blame where blame was true,?Praising where small praise was due;
For a waking dream made good,?For an ideal understood,?For thy Christian womanhood;
For thy marvellous gift to cull?From our common life and dull?Whatsoe'er is beautiful;
Thoughts and fancies, Hybla's bees?Dropping sweetness; true heart's-ease?Of congenial sympathies;--
Still for these I own my debt;?Memory, with her eyelids wet,?Fain would thank thee even yet!
And as one who scatters flowers?Where the Queen of May's sweet hours?Sits, o'ertwined with blossomed bowers,
In superfluous zeal bestowing?Gifts where gifts are overflowing,?So I pay the debt I'm owing.
To thy full thoughts, gay or sad,?Sunny-hued or sober clad,?Something of my own I add;
Well assured that thou wilt take?Even the offering which I make?Kindly for the giver's sake.?1851.
MY NAMESAKE.
Addressed to Francis Greenleaf Allison of Burlington, New Jersey.
You scarcely need my tardy thanks,?Who, self-rewarded, nurse and tend--?A green leaf on your own Green Banks--?The memory of your friend.
For me, no wreath, bloom-woven, hides?The