Whittiers Complete Poems, vol 4 | Page 6

of mournful beauty play
Round the sad Angel's
sable hair.
Oh! at this hour when half the sky
Is glorious with its evening light,

And fair broad fields of summer lie
Hung o'er with greenness in

my sight;
While through these elm-boughs wet with rain
The sunset's golden
walls are seen,
With clover-bloom and yellow grain
And
wood-draped hill and stream between;
I long to know if scenes like this
Are hidden from an angel's eyes;

If earth's familiar loveliness
Haunts not thy heaven's serener skies.
For sweetly here upon thee grew
The lesson which that beauty gave,

The ideal of the pure and true
In earth and sky and gliding wave.
And it may be that all which lends
The soul an upward impulse here,

With a diviner beauty blends,
And greets us in a holier sphere.
Through groves where blighting never fell
The humbler flowers of
earth may twine;
And simple draughts-from childhood's well
Blend
with the angel-tasted wine.
But be the prying vision veiled,
And let the seeking lips be dumb,

Where even seraph eyes have failed
Shall mortal blindness seek to
come?
We only know that thou hast gone,
And that the same returnless tide

Which bore thee from us still glides on,
And we who mourn thee
with it glide.
On all thou lookest we shall look,
And to our gaze erelong shall turn

That page of God's mysterious book
We so much wish yet dread to
learn.
With Him, before whose awful power
Thy spirit bent its trembling
knee;
Who, in the silent greeting flower,
And forest leaf, looked out
on thee,
We leave thee, with a trust serene,
Which Time, nor Change, nor

Death can move,
While with thy childlike faith we lean
On Him
whose dearest name is Love!
1842.
TO J. P.
John Pierpont, the eloquent preacher and poet of Boston.
Not as a poor requital of the joy
With which my childhood heard that
lay of thine,
Which, like an echo of the song divine
At Bethlehem
breathed above the Holy Boy,
Bore to my ear the Airs of Palestine,--

Not to the poet, but the man I bring
In friendship's fearless trust my
offering
How much it lacks I feel, and thou wilt see,
Yet well I
know that thou Last deemed with me
Life all too earnest, and its time
too short
For dreamy ease and Fancy's graceful sport;
And girded
for thy constant strife with wrong,
Like Nehemiah fighting while he
wrought
The broken walls of Zion, even thy song
Hath a rude
martial tone, a blow in every thought!
1843.
CHALKLEY HALL.
Chalkley Hall, near Frankford, Pa., was the residence of Thomas
Chalkley, an eminent minister of the Friends' denomination. He was
one of the early settlers of the Colony, and his Journal, which was
published in 1749, presents a quaint but beautiful picture of a life of
unostentatious and simple goodness. He was the master of a merchant
vessel, and, in his visits to the west Indies and Great Britain, omitted no
opportunity to labor for the highest interests of his fellow-men. During
a temporary residence in Philadelphia, in the summer of 1838, the quiet
and beautiful scenery around the ancient village of Frankford
frequently attracted me from the heat and bustle of the city. I have
referred to my youthful acquaintance with his writings in Snow-Bound.
How bland and sweet the greeting of this breeze
To him who flies

From crowded street and red wall's weary gleam,
Till far behind him
like a hideous dream
The close dark city lies
Here, while the market
murmurs, while men throng
The marble floor
Of Mammon's altar,

from the crush and din
Of the world's madness let me gather in
My
better thoughts once more.
Oh, once again revive, while on my ear
The cry of Gain
And low
hoarse hum of Traffic die away,
Ye blessed memories of my early
day
Like sere grass wet with rain!
Once more let God's green earth and sunset air
Old feelings waken;

Through weary years of toil and strife and ill,
Oh, let me feel that my
good angel still
Hath not his trust forsaken.
And well do time and place befit my mood
Beneath the arms
Of
this embracing wood, a good man made
His home, like Abraham
resting in the shade
Of Mamre's lonely palms.
Here, rich with autumn gifts of countless years,
The virgin soil

Turned from the share he guided, and in rain
And summer sunshine
throve the fruits and grain
Which blessed his honest toil.
Here, from his voyages on the stormy seas,
Weary and worn,
He
came to meet his children and to bless
The Giver of all good in
thankfulness
And praise for his return.
And here his neighbors gathered in to greet
Their friend again,
Safe
from the wave and the destroying gales,
Which reap untimely green
Bermuda's vales,
And vex the Carib main.
To hear the good man tell of simple truth,
Sown in an hour
Of
weakness in some far-off Indian isle,
From the parched bosom of a
barren soil,
Raised up in life and power.
How at those gatherings in Barbadian vales,
A tendering love
Came
o'er him, like the gentle rain from heaven,
And words of fitness to his
lips were given,
And strength as from above.

How the sad captive listened