Songs of Many Seasons (1862-74) | Page 2

placed,
Mark the record Friendship
traced.
Prisoned in the walls of time
Life has notched itself in
rhyme
As its seasons slid along,
Every year a notch of song,
From the June
of long ago,
When the rose was full in blow,
Till the scarlet sage has come
And the cold chrysanthemum.
Read,
but not to praise or blame;
Are not all our hearts the same?
For the rest, they take their chance,--
Some may pay a passing glance;

Others,-well, they served a turn,--
Wherefore written, would you
learn?
Not for glory, not for pelf,
Not, be sure, to please myself,
Not for
any meaner ends,--
Always "by request of friends."
Here's the cousin of a king,--
Would I do the civil thing?
Here 's the
first-born of a queen;
Here 's a slant-eyed Mandarin.
Would I polish off Japan?
Would I greet this famous man,
Prince or
Prelate, Sheik or Shah?--
Figaro gi and Figaro la!
Would I just this once comply?--
So they teased and teased till I

(Be the truth at once confessed)
Wavered--yielded--did my best.
Turn my pages,--never mind
If you like not all you find;
Think not
all the grains are gold
Sacramento's sand-banks hold.

Every kernel has its shell,
Every chime its harshest bell,
Every face
its weariest look,
Every shelf its emptiest book,
Every field its leanest sheaf,
Every book its dullest leaf,
Every leaf
its weakest line,--
Shall it not be so with mine?
Best for worst shall make amends,
Find us, keep us, leave us friends

Till, perchance, we meet again.
Benedicite.--Amen!
October 7, 1874.
IN THE QUIET DAYS
AN OLD-YEAR SONG
As through the forest, disarrayed
By chill November, late I strayed,

A lonely minstrel of the wood
Was singing to the solitude
I loved
thy music, thus I said,
When o'er thy perch the leaves were spread

Sweet was thy song, but sweeter now
Thy carol on the leafless bough.

Sing, little bird! thy note shall cheer
The sadness of the dying year.
When violets pranked the turf with blue
And morning filled their
cups with dew,
Thy slender voice with rippling trill
The budding
April bowers would fill,
Nor passed its joyous tones away
When
April rounded into May:
Thy life shall hail no second dawn,--
Sing,
little bird! the spring is gone.
And I remember--well-a-day!--
Thy full-blown summer roundelay,

As when behind a broidered screen
Some holy maiden sings unseen

With answering notes the woodland rung,
And every tree-top
found a tongue.
How deep the shade! the groves how fair!
Sing,
little bird! the woods are bare.
The summer's throbbing chant is done
And mute the choral antiphon;

The birds have left the shivering pines
To flit among the trellised

vines,
Or fan the air with scented plumes
Amid the love-sick
orange-blooms,
And thou art here alone,--alone,--
Sing, little bird!
the rest have flown.
The snow has capped yon distant hill,
At morn the running brook was
still,
From driven herds the clouds that rise
Are like the smoke of
sacrifice;
Erelong the frozen sod shall mock
The ploughshare,
changed to stubborn rock,
The brawling streams shall soon be
dumb,--
Sing, little bird! the frosts have come.
Fast, fast the lengthening shadows creep,
The songless fowls are half
asleep,
The air grows chill, the setting sun
May leave thee ere thy
song is done,
The pulse that warms thy breast grow cold,
Thy secret
die with thee, untold
The lingering sunset still is bright,--
Sing, little
bird! 't will soon be night.
1874.
DOROTHY Q.
A FAMILY PORTRAIT
I cannot tell the story of Dorothy Q. more simply in prose than I have
told it in verse, but I can add something to it. Dorothy was the daughter
of Judge Edmund Quincy, and the niece of Josiah Quincy, junior, the
young patriot and orator who died just before the American Revolution,
of which he was one of the most eloquent and effective promoters. The
son of the latter, Josiah Quincy, the first mayor of Boston bearing that
name, lived to a great age, one of the most useful and honored citizens
of his time. The canvas of the painting was so much decayed that it had
to be replaced by a new one, in doing which the rapier thrust was of
course filled up.
GRANDMOTHER'S mother: her age, I guess,
Thirteen summers, or
something less;
Girlish bust, but womanly air;
Smooth, square
forehead with uprolled hair;
Lips that lover has never kissed;
Taper

fingers and slender wrist;
Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade;
So they
painted the little maid.
On her hand a parrot green
Sits unmoving and broods serene.
Hold
up the canvas full in view,--
Look! there's a rent the light shines
through,
Dark with a century's fringe of dust,--
That was a
Red-Coat's rapier-thrust!
Such is the tale the lady old,
Dorothy's
daughter's daughter, told.
Who the painter was none may tell,--
One whose best was not over
well;
Hard and dry, it must be confessed,
Flat as a rose that has long
been pressed;
Yet in her cheek the hues are bright,
Dainty colors of
red and white,
And in her slender shape are seen
Hint and promise
of stately mien.
Look not on her with eyes of scorn,--
Dorothy Q. was a lady born!

Ay! since the galloping Normans came,
England's annals have known
her name;
And still to the three-billed rebel town
Dear is that
ancient name's renown,
For many a civic