And the old lord's wife is dead and gone, For he sits beside his own Kathleen, FIRST-DAY THOUGHTS. IN calm and cool and silence, once again I find my old accustomed place among My brethren, where, perchance, no human tongue Shall utter words; where never hymn is sung, Nor deep-toned organ blown, nor censer swung, Nor dim light falling through the pictured pane! There, syllabled by silence, let me hear The still small voice which reached the prophet's ear; Read in my heart a still diviner law Than Israel's leader on his tables saw ! There let me strive with each besetting sin, Recall my wandering fancies, and restrain The sore disquiet of a restless brain; And, as the path of duty is made plain, May grace be given that I may walk therein, Not like the hireling, for his selfish gain, TO MY OLD SCHOOLMASTER. Welcome to him, who, while he strove to break The Austrian yoke from Magyar necks, smote off At the same blow the fetters of the serf, Rearing the altar of his Father-land On the firm base of freedom, and thereby Lifting to Heaven a patriot's stainless hand, Mocked not the God of Justice with a lie ! Who shall be Freedom's mouth-piece? Who shall give Her welcoming cheer to the great fugitive ? Not he who, all her sacred trusts betraying, Is scourging back to slavery's hell of pain The swarthy Kossuths of our land again! Not he whose utterance now from lips designed The bugle-march of Liberty to wind, And call her hosts beneath the breaking Draw the mouths of bigots down, Plague ambition's dream, and sit Heavy on the hypocrite, 173 Haunt the rich man's door, and ride Find to do with such as thee? I, the urchin unto whom, In that smoked and dingy room, Where the district gave thee rule O'er its ragged winter school, Thou didst teach the mysteries Of those weary A B C's, Where, to fill the every pause Of thy wise and learned saws, Through the cracked and crazy wall Came the cradle-rock and squall, And the goodman's voice, at strife With his shrill and tipsy wife, Luring us by stories old, With a comic unction told, More than by the eloquence Of terse birchen arguments (Doubtful gain, I fear), to look With complacence on a book! Where the genial pedagogue Half forgot his rogues to flog, Citing tale or apologue, Wise and merry in its drift As oldPhædrus' twofold gift, Had the little rebels known it, Risum et prudentiam monet! I, the man of middle years, In whose sable locks appears Many a warning fleck of gray, Looking back to that far day, And thy primal lessons, feel Grateful smiles my lips unseal, As, remembering thee, I blend Olden teacher, present friend, Wise with antiquarian search, In the scrolls of State and Church: Named on history's title-page, Parish-clerk and justice sage; For the ferule's wholesome awe Wielding now the sword of law. Threshing Time's neglected sheaves, Gathering up the scattered leaves Which the wrinkled sibyl cast Careless from her as she passed, Twofold citizen art thou, Freeman of the past and now. He who bore thy name of old Midway in the heavens did hold Over Gibeon moon and sun; Thou hast bidden them backward run; Let the busy ones deride Dabbling, in their noisy way, On whose margin, wreck-bespread, Shapes the dust has long o'erlain, On that shore, with fowler's tact, Or the flip that wellnigh made Doubtful, puritanic saint; Touched their beards December's frost. Time is hastening on, and we Well, whatever lot be mine, THE PANORAMA. Of the old Puritanic art, 175 Yet, in earnest or in jest, THE PANORAMA, AND OTHER POEMS. THE PANORAMA. "A! fredome is a nobill thing! ARCHDEACON BARBOUR. 1856. Deepened and swelled to music clear and loud, And, as the west-wind lifts a summer cloud, The curtain rose, disclosing wide and far A green land stretching to the evening star, Fair rivers, skirted by primeval trees And flowers hummed over by the desert bees, Marked by tall bluffs whose slopes of greenness show Fantastic outcrops of the rock below, The slow result of patient Nature's pains, And plastic fingering of her sun and rains, Arch, tower, and gate, grotesquely windowed hall, And long escarpment of half-crumbled wall, Huger than those which, from steep hills of vine, Stare through their loopholes on the travelled Rhine; Suggesting vaguely to the gazer's mind The unsung Jotuns of the mystic West. Beyond, the prairie's sea-like swells And, still beyond, long lines of foam and sand Tell where Pacific rolls his waves aland, From many a wide-lapped port and land-locked bay, Opening with thunderous pomp the world's highway To Indian isles of spice, and marts of far Cathay. "Such," said the Showman, as the curtain fell, "Is the new Canaan of our Israel, The land of promise to the swarming North, Which, hive-like, sends its annual surplus forth, To the poor Southron on his worn-out soil, Scathed by the curses of unnatural toil; To Europe's exiles seeking home and rest, And the lank nomads of the wandering West, Who, asking neither, in their love of change And the free bison's amplitude of range, Rear the log-hut, for present shelter meant, Not future comfort, like an Arab's tent." Then spake a shrewd on-looker, "Sir," said he, "I like your picture, but I fain would see A sketch of what your promised land will be When, with electric nerve, and fierybrained, With Nature's forces to its chariot chained, The future grasping, by the past obeyed, The twentieth century rounds a new decade." we sow; That present time is but the mould wherein We cast the shapes of holiness and sin. A painful watcher of the passing hour, Its lust of gold, its strife for place and power; Its lack of manhood, honor, reverence, truth, Wise-thoughted age, and generoushearted youth; Nor yet unmindful of each better sign, The low, far lights, which on th' horizon shine, Like those which sometimes tremble on the rim Of clouded skies when day is closing dim, Flashing athwart the purple spears of rain The hope of sunshine on the hills again : I need no prophet's word, nor shapes that pass Like clouding shadows o'er a magic glass; For now, as ever, passionless and cold, Doth the dread angel of the future hold Evil and good before us, with no voice Or warning look to guide us in our choice; With spectral hands outreaching through the gloom The shadowy contrasts of the coming doom. Transferred from these, it now remains to give The sun and shade of Fate's alternative." |