Whittiers Complete Poems, vol 1 | Page 4

are rich in the
perfect love of God!
1830.
THE FEMALE MARTYR.
Mary G-----, aged eighteen, a "Sister of Charity," died in one of our
Atlantic cities, during the prevalence of the Indian cholera, while in
voluntary attendance upon the sick.

"BRING out your dead!" The midnight street
Heard and gave back
the hoarse, low call;
Harsh fell the tread of hasty feet,
Glanced
through the dark the coarse white sheet,
Her coffin and her pall.

"What--only one!" the brutal hack-man said,
As, with an oath, he
spurned away the dead.
How sunk the inmost hearts of all,
As rolled that dead-cart slowly by,

With creaking wheel and harsh hoof-fall!
The dying turned him to
the wall,
To hear it and to die!
Onward it rolled; while oft its driver
stayed,
And hoarsely clamored, "Ho! bring out your dead."
It paused beside the burial-place;
"Toss in your load!" and it was
done.
With quick hand and averted face,
Hastily to the grave's
embrace
They cast them, one by one,
Stranger and friend, the evil
and the just,
Together trodden in the churchyard dust.
And thou, young martyr! thou wast there;
No white-robed sisters
round thee trod,
Nor holy hymn, nor funeral prayer
Rose through
the damp and noisome air,
Giving thee to thy God;
Nor flower, nor
cross, nor hallowed taper gave
Grace to the dead, and beauty to the
grave!
Yet, gentle sufferer! there shall be,
In every heart of kindly feeling,

A rite as holy paid to thee
As if beneath the convent-tree
Thy
sisterhood were kneeling,
At vesper hours, like sorrowing angels,
keeping
Their tearful watch around thy place of sleeping.
For thou wast one in whom the light
Of Heaven's own love was
kindled well;
Enduring with a martyr's might,
Through weary day
and wakeful night,
Far more than words may tell
Gentle, and meek,
and lowly, and unknown,
Thy mercies measured by thy God alone!
Where manly hearts were failing, where
The throngful street grew
foul with death,
O high-souled martyr! thou wast there,

Inhaling,

from the loathsome air,
Poison with every breath.
Yet shrinking not
from offices of dread
For the wrung dying, and the unconscious dead.
And, where the sickly taper shed
Its light through vapors, damp,
confined,
Hushed as a seraph's fell thy tread,
A new Electra by the
bed
Of suffering human-kind!
Pointing the spirit, in its dark dismay,

To that pure hope which fadeth not away.
Innocent teacher of the high
And holy mysteries of Heaven!
How
turned to thee each glazing eye,
In mute and awful sympathy,
As
thy low prayers were given;
And the o'er-hovering Spoiler wore, the
while,
An angel's features, a deliverer's smile!
A blessed task! and worthy one
Who, turning from the world, as thou,

Before life's pathway had begun
To leave its spring-time flower
and sun,
Had sealed her early vow;
Giving to God her beauty and
her youth,
Her pure affections and her guileless truth.
Earth may not claim thee. Nothing here
Could be for thee a meet
reward;
Thine is a treasure far more dear
Eye hath not seen it, nor
the ear
Of living mortal heard
The joys prepared, the promised bliss
above,
The holy presence of Eternal Love!
Sleep on in peace. The earth has not
A nobler name than thine shall
be.
The deeds by martial manhood wrought,
The lofty energies of
thought,
The fire of poesy,
These have but frail and fading honors;
thine
Shall Time unto Eternity consign.
Yea, and when thrones shall crumble down,
And human pride and
grandeur fall,
The herald's line of long renown,
The mitre and the
kingly crown,--
Perishing glories all!
The pure devotion of thy
generous heart

Shall live in Heaven, of which it was a part.
1833.
EXTRACT FROM "A NEW ENGLAND LEGEND."
(Originally

a part of the author's Moll Pitcher.)
How has New England's romance fled,
Even as a vision of the
morning!
Its rites foredone, its guardians dead,
Its priestesses,
bereft of dread,
Waking the veriest urchin's scorning!
Gone like the
Indian wizard's yell
And fire-dance round the magic rock,
Forgotten
like the Druid's spell
At moonrise by his holy oak!
No more along
the shadowy glen
Glide the dim ghosts of murdered men;
No more
the unquiet churchyard dead
Glimpse upward from their turfy bed,

Startling the traveller, late and lone;
As, on some night of starless
weather,
They silently commune together,
Each sitting on his own
head-stone
The roofless house, decayed, deserted,
Its living tenants
all departed,
No longer rings with midnight revel
Of witch, or ghost,
or goblin evil;
No pale blue flame sends out its flashes
Through
creviced roof and shattered sashes!
The witch-grass round the hazel
spring
May sharply to the night-air sing,
But there no more shall
withered hags
Refresh at ease their broomstick nags,
Or taste those
hazel-shadowed waters
As beverage meet for Satan's daughters;
No
more their mimic tones be heard,
The mew of cat, the chirp of bird,

Shrill blending with the hoarser laughter
Of the fell demon following
after!
The cautious goodman nails no more
A horseshoe on his
outer door,
Lest some unseemly hag should fit
To his own mouth
her bridle-bit;
The goodwife's churn no more refuses
Its wonted
culinary uses
Until, with heated needle burned,
The witch has to her
place returned!
Our witches are no longer old
And wrinkled
beldames, Satan-sold,
But young and gay and laughing creatures,

With the heart's sunshine on their features;
Their sorcery--the light
which dances
Where the raised lid unveils its glances;
Or that
low-breathed and gentle tone,
The music of