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

Fame should turn
Her notes of praise to those
of scorn;
Her gifts reclaimed, her smiles withdrawn?
What matters it? a few years more,
Life's surge so restless heretofore

Shall break upon the unknown shore!
In that far land shall disappear
The shadows which we follow here,

The mist-wreaths of our atmosphere!
Before no work of mortal hand,
Of human will or strength expand

The pearl gates of the Better Land;
Alone in that great love which gave
Life to the sleeper of the grave,

Resteth the power to seek and 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