Songs of Many Seasons (1862-74) | Page 9

storm-god's iron bride!
Peace garlands with the olive-bough
Her thunder-bearing tower,

And plants before her cleaving prow
The sea-foam's milk-white
flower.
No prairies heaped their garnered store
To fill her sunless hold,
Not
rich Nevada's gleaming ore
Its hidden caves infold,
But lightly as the sea-bird swings
She floats the depths above,
A
breath of flame to lend her wings,
Her freight a people's love!
When darkness hid the starry skies
In war's long winter night,
One
ray still cheered our straining eyes,
The far-off Northern light
And now the friendly rays return
From lights that glow afar,
Those
clustered lamps of Heaven that burn
Around the Western Star.
A nation's love in tears and smiles
We bear across the sea,
O Neva
of the banded isles,
We moor our hearts in thee!
WELCOME TO THE GRAND DUKE ALEXIS
MUSIC HALL, DECEMBER 6, 1871
Sung to the Russian national air by the children of the public schools.
SHADOWED so long by the storm-cloud of danger,
Thou whom the
prayers of an empire defend,
Welcome, thrice welcome! but not as a

stranger,
Come to the nation that calls thee its friend!
Bleak are our shores with the blasts of December,
Fettered and chill
is the rivulet's flow;
Throbbing and warm are the hearts that
remember
Who was our friend when the world was our foe.
Look on the lips that are smiling to greet thee,
See the fresh flowers
that a people has strewn
Count them thy sisters and brothers that meet
thee;
Guest of the Nation, her heart is thine own!
Fires of the North, in eternal communion,
Blend your broad flashes
with evening's bright star!
God bless the Empire that loves the Great
Union;
Strength to her people! Long life to the Czar!
AT THE BANQUET TO THE GRAND DUKE ALEXIS
DECEMBER 9, 1871
ONE word to the guest we have gathered to greet!
The echoes are
longing that word to repeat,--
It springs to the lips that are waiting to
part,
For its syllables spell themselves first in the heart.
Its accents may vary, its sound may be strange,
But it bears a kind
message that nothing can change;
The dwellers by Neva its meaning
can tell,
For the smile, its interpreter, shows it full well.
That word! How it gladdened the Pilgrim yore,
As he stood in the
snow on the desolate shore!
When the shout of the sagamore startled
his ear
In the phrase of the Saxon, 't was music to hear!
Ah, little could Samoset offer our sire,--
The cabin, the corn-cake, the
seat by the fire;
He had nothing to give,--the poor lord of the land,--

But he gave him a WELCOME,--his heart in his hand!
The tribe of the sachem has melted away,
But the word that he spoke

is remembered to-day,
And the page that is red with the record of
shame
The tear-drops have whitened round Samoset's name.
The word that he spoke to the Pilgrim of old
May sound like a tale
that has often been told;
But the welcome we speak is as fresh as the
dew,--
As the kiss of a lover, that always is new!
Ay, Guest of the Nation! each roof is thine own
Through all the broad
continent's star-bannered zone;
From the shore where the curtain of
morn is uprolled,
To the billows that flow through the gateway of
gold.
The snow-crested mountains are calling aloud;
Nevada to Ural speaks
out of the cloud,
And Shasta shouts forth, from his throne in the sky,

To the storm-splintered summits, the peaks of Altai!
You must leave him, they say, till the summer is green!
Both shores
are his home, though the waves roll between;
And then we'll return
him, with thanks for the same,
As fresh and as smiling and tall as he
came.
But ours is the region of arctic delight;
We can show him auroras and
pole-stars by night;
There's a Muscovy sting in the ice-tempered air,

And our firesides are warm and our maidens are fair.
The flowers are full-blown in the garlanded hall,--
They will bloom
round his footsteps wherever they fall;
For the splendors of youth and
the sunshine they bring
Make the roses believe 't is the summons of
Spring.
One word of our language he needs must know well,
But another
remains that is harder to spell;
We shall speak it so ill, if he wishes to
learn
How we utter Farewell, he will have to return!
AT THE BANQUET TO THE CHINESE EMBASSY

AUGUST 21, 1868
BROTHERS, whom we may not reach
Through the veil of alien
speech,
Welcome! welcome! eyes can tell
What the lips in vain
would spell,--
Words that hearts can understand,
Brothers from the
Flowery Land!
We, the evening's latest born,
Hail the children of the morn!
We,
the new creation's birth,
Greet the lords of ancient earth,
From their
storied walls and towers
Wandering to these tents of ours!
Land of wonders, fair Cathay,
Who long hast shunned the staring day,

Hid in mists of poet's dreams
By thy blue and yellow streams,--

Let us thy shadowed form behold,--
Teach us as thou didst of old.
Knowledge dwells with length of days;
Wisdom walks in ancient
ways;
Thine the compass that could guide
A nation o'er the stormy
tide,
Scourged by