Here shall the tender song be sung, And memory's dirges soft and low, And wit shall sparkle on the tongue, And mirth shall overflow,
Harmless as summer lightning plays From a low, hidden cloud by night, A light to set the hills ablaze, But not a bolt to smite.
In sunny South and prairied West Are exiled hearts remembering still, As bees their hive, as birds their nest, The homes of Haverhill.
They join us in our rites to-day; And, listening, we may hear, ere long, From inland lake and ocean bay,
The echoes of our song.
Kenoza! o'er no sweeter lake
Shall morning break or noon-cloud sail,— No fairer face than thine shall take
The sunset's golden veil.
Long be it ere the tide of trade
Shall break with harsh-resounding din
The quiet of thy banks of shade, And hills that fold thee in.
Still let thy woodlands hide the hare, The shy loon sound his trumpet-note; Wing-weary from his fields of air, The wild-goose on thee float.
Thy peace rebuke our feverish stir, Thy beauty our deforming strife; Thy woods and waters minister The healing of their life.
And sinless Mirth, from care released, Behold, unawed, thy mirrored sky, Smiling as smiled on Cana's feast The Master's loving eye.
And when the summer day grows dim, And light mists walk thy mimic sea, Revive in us the thought of Him Who walked on Galilee!
So spake Esaias: so, in words of flame, Tekoa's prophet-herdsman smote with blame The traffickers in men, and put to shame, All earth and heaven before,
The sacerdotal robbers of the poor.
All the dread Scripture lives for thee again, To smite with lightning on the hands profane Lifted to bless the slave-whip and the chain. Once more th' old Hebrew tongue Bends with the shafts of God a bow new-strung!
Take up the mantle which the prophets wore; Warn with their warnings,-show the Christ once
Bound, scourged, and crucified in his blameless poor;
And shake above our land
The unquenched bolts that blazed in Hosea's hand!
Not vainly shalt thou cast upon our years The soleinn burdens of the Orient seers, And smite with truth a guilty nation's ears. Mightier was Luther's word
Than Seckingen's mailed arm or Hutton's sword!
THE shade for me, but over thee The lingering sunshine still; As, smiling, to the silent stream Comes down the singing rill,
So come to me, my little one,— My years with thee I share, And mingle with a sister's love A mother's tender care.
But keep the smile upon thy lip,
The trust upon thy brow;
Since for the dear one God hath called
We have an angel now.
Our mother from the fields of heaven
Shall still her ear incline;
Nor need we fear her human love Is less for love divine.
The songs are sweet they sing beneath The trees of life so fair,
But sweetest of the songs of heaven Shall be her children's prayer.
Then, darling, rest upon my breast, And teach my heart to lean With thy sweet trust upon the arm Which folds us both unseen!
FOR AN AGRICULTURAL EXHIBITION.
FOR THE AGRICULTURAL AND HORTICULTURAL EXHIBITION AT AMES- BURY AND SALISBURY, SEPT. 28, 1858.
THIS day, two hundred years ago, The wild grape by the river's side, And tasteless ground-nut trailing low, The table of the woods supplied.
Unknown the apple's red and gold, The blushing tint of peach and pear; The mirror of the Powow told
No tale of orchards ripe and rare.
Wild as the fruits he scorned to till, These vales the idle Indian trod; Nor knew the glad, creative skill,- The joy of him who toils with God
O Painter of the fruits and flowers! We thank thee for thy wise design Whereby these human hands of ours In Nature's garden work with thine.
And thanks that from our daily need The joy of simple faith is born; That he who smites the summer weed, May trust thee for the autumn corn.
Give fools their gold, and knaves their power; Let fortune's bubbles rise and fall; Who sows a field, or trains a flower, Or plants a tree, is more than all.
For he who blesses most is blest;
And God and man shall own his worth Who toils to leave as his bequest An added beauty to the earth.
And, soon or late, to all that sow, The time of harvest shall be given; The flower shall bloom, the fruit shall grow, If not on earth, at last in heaven !
ITs windows flashing to the sky, Beneath a thousand roofs of brown, Far down the vale, my friend and I Beheld the old and quiet town; The ghostly sails that out at sea Flapped their white wings of mystery; The beaches glimmering in the sun, And the low wooded capes that run Into the sea-mist north and south; The sand-bluffs at the river's mouth; The swinging chain-bridge, and, afar, The foam-line of the harbor-bar.
Over the woods and meadow-lands A crimson-tinted shadow lay
Of clouds through which the setting day Flung a slant glory far away.
It glittered on the wet sea-sands,
It flamed upon the city's panes, Smote the white sails of ships that wore Outward or in, and glided o'er
The steeples with their veering vanes!
Awhile my friend with rapid search O'erran the landscape.
Over gray roofs, a shaft of fire
What is it, pray?"-" The Whitefield Church!
Walled about by its basement stones,
There rest the marvellous prophet's bones."
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