Songs In Many Keys | Page 5

to change the heaven of blue?For England's clouded sky,--?To breathe the air his boyhood knew;?He seeks then but to die.
Hard by the terraced hillside town,?Where healing streamlets run,?Still sparkling with their old renown,--?The "Waters of the Sun,"--
The Lady Agnes raised the stone?That marks his honored grave,?And there Sir Harry sleeps alone?By Wiltshire Avon's wave.
The home of early love was dear;?She sought its peaceful shade,?And kept her state for many a year,?With none to make afraid.
At last the evil days were come?That saw the red cross fall;?She hears the rebels' rattling drum,--?Farewell to Frankland Hall!
I tell you, as my tale began,?The hall is standing still;?And you, kind listener, maid or man,?May see it if you will.
The box is glistening huge and green,?Like trees the lilacs grow,?Three elms high-arching still are seen,?And one lies stretched below.
The hangings, rough with velvet flowers,?Flap on the latticed wall;?And o'er the mossy ridge-pole towers?The rock-hewn chimney tall.
The doors on mighty hinges clash?With massive bolt and bar,?The heavy English-moulded sash?Scarce can the night-winds jar.
Behold the chosen room he sought?Alone, to fast and pray,?Each year, as chill November brought?The dismal earthquake day.
There hung the rapier blade he wore,?Bent in its flattened sheath;?The coat the shrieking woman tore?Caught in her clenching teeth;--
The coat with tarnished silver lace?She snapped at as she slid,?And down upon her death-white face?Crashed the huge coffin's lid.
A graded terrace yet remains;?If on its turf you stand?And look along the wooded plains?That stretch on either hand,
The broken forest walls define?A dim, receding view,?Where, on the far horizon's line,?He cut his vista through.
If further story you shall crave,?Or ask for living proof,?Go see old Julia, born a slave?Beneath Sir Harry's roof.
She told me half that I have told,?And she remembers well?The mansion as it looked of old?Before its glories fell;--
The box, when round the terraced square?Its glossy wall was drawn;?The climbing vines, the snow-balls fair,?The roses on the lawn.
And Julia says, with truthful look?Stamped on her wrinkled face,?That in her own black hands she took?The coat with silver lace.
And you may hold the story light,?Or, if you like, believe;?But there it was, the woman's bite,--?A mouthful from the sleeve.
Now go your ways;--I need not tell?The moral of my rhyme;?But, youths and maidens, ponder well?This tale of olden time!
THE PLOUGHMAN?ANNIVERSARY OF THE BERKSHIRE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY,?OCTOBER 4, 1849
CLEAR the brown path, to meet his coulter's gleam!?Lo! on he comes, behind his smoking team,?With toil's bright dew-drops on his sunburnt brow,?The lord of earth, the hero of the plough!
First in the field before the reddening sun,?Last in the shadows when the day is done,?Line after line, along the bursting sod,?Marks the broad acres where his feet have trod;?Still, where he treads, the stubborn clods divide,?The smooth, fresh furrow opens deep and wide;?Matted and dense the tangled turf upheaves,?Mellow and dark the ridgy cornfield cleaves;?Up the steep hillside, where the laboring train?Slants the long track that scores the level plain;?Through the moist valley, clogged with oozing clay,?The patient convoy breaks its destined way;?At every turn the loosening chains resound,?The swinging ploughshare circles glistening round,?Till the wide field one billowy waste appears,?And wearied hands unbind the panting steers.
These are the hands whose sturdy labor brings?The peasant's food, the golden pomp of kings;?This is the page, whose letters shall be seen?Changed by the sun to words of living green;?This is the scholar, whose immortal pen?Spells the first lesson hunger taught to men;?These are the lines which heaven-commanded Toil?Shows on his deed,--the charter of the soil
O gracious Mother, whose benignant breast?Wakes us to life, and lulls us all to rest,?How thy sweet features, kind to every clime,?Mock with their smile the wrinkled front of time?We stain thy flowers,--they blossom o'er the dead;?We rend thy bosom, and it gives us bread;?O'er the red field that trampling strife has torn,?Waves the green plumage of thy tasselled corn;?Our maddening conflicts sear thy fairest plain,?Still thy soft answer is the growing grain.?Yet, O our Mother, while uncounted charms?Steal round our hearts in thine embracing arms,?Let not our virtues in thy love decay,?And thy fond sweetness waste our strength away.
No! by these hills, whose banners now displayed?In blazing cohorts Autumn has arrayed;?By yon twin summits, on whose splintery crests?The tossing hemlocks hold the eagles' nests;?By these fair plains the mountain circle screens,?And feeds with streamlets from its dark ravines,?True to their home, these faithful arms shall toil?To crown with peace their own untainted soil;?And, true to God, to freedom, to mankind,?If her chained bandogs Faction shall unbind,?These stately forms, that bending even now?Bowed their strong manhood to the humble plough,?Shall rise erect, the guardians of the land,?The same stern iron in the same right hand,?Till o'er their hills the shouts of triumph run,?The sword has rescued what the ploughshare won!
SPRING
WINTER is past; the heart of Nature warms?Beneath the wrecks of unresisted storms;?Doubtful at first, suspected more than seen,?The southern