And when the summer winds shall sweep
With their light wings my place of sleep,
And mosses round my head-stone creep,
If still, as freedom's rallying sign,
Upon the young heart's altars shine
The very fires they caught from mine,
If words my lips once utter'd still
In the calm faith and steadfast will
Of other hearts, their work fulfil,
Perchance with joy the soul may learn
These tokens, and its eye discern
The fires which on those altars burn,-
A marvellous joy that even then
The spirit hath its life again,
In the strong hearts of mortal men.
Take, lady, then, the gift I bring,
No gay and graceful offering-
No flower-smile of the laughing spring.
Midst the green buds of youth's fresh May,
With fancy's leaf-enwoven bay,
My sad and sombre gift I lay.
And if it deepens in thy mind
A sense of suffering human kind-
The outcast and the spirit-blind:
Oppress'd and spoil'd on every side,
By prejudice, and scorn, and pride;
Life's common courtesies denied:
Sad mothers mourning o'er their trust,
Children by want and misery nursed,
Tasting life's bitter cup at first.
If to their strong appeals which come
From fireless hearth, and crowded room,
And the dark alley's noisome gloom,—
Though dark the hands upraised to thee
In mute, beseeching agony,
Thou lend'st thy woman's sympathy,
Not vainly on thy gentle shrine
Where love, and mirth, and friendship twine
Their varied gifts, I offer mine.
OH, fairest born of love and light,
Yet bending brow and eye severe
On all which pains the holy sight
Or wounds the pure and perfect ear!
Beautiful yet thy temples rise,
Though there profaning gifts are thrown; And fires unkindled of the skies
Are glaring round thy altar-stone
Still sacred-though thy name be breathed
By those whose hearts thy truth deride;
And garlands, pluck'd from thee, are wreathed
Around the haughty brows of pride.
O, ideal of my boyhood's time!
The faith in which my father stood,
Even when the sons of lust and crime
Had stain'd thy peaceful courts with blood!
Still to those courts my footsteps turn,
For, through the mists that darken there,
I see the flame of freedom burn-
The Kebla of the patriot's prayer!
The generous feeling, pure and warm,
Which owns the right of all divine-
The pitying heart-the helping arm-
The prompt self-sacrifice-are thine.
Beneath thy broad, impartial eye,
How fade the lines of caste and birth!
How equal in their suffering lie
The groaning multitudes of earth!
Still to a stricken brother true,
Whatever clime hath nurtured him;
As stoop'd to heal the wounded Jew
The worshipper of Gerizim.
By misery unrepell'd, unawed
By pomp or power, thou see'st a MAN
In prince or peasant-slave or lord—
Pale priest, or swarthy artisan.
Through all disguise, form, place or name,
Beneath the flaunting robes of sin,
Through poverty and squalid shame,
Thou lookest on the man within.
On man, as man, retaining yet,
Howe'er debased, and soil'd, and dim,
The crown upon his forehead set-
The immortal gift of God to him.
And there is reverence in thy look;
For that frail form which mortals wear
The Spirit of the Holiest took,
And veil'd His perfect brightness there.
Not from the cold and shallow fount
Of vain philosophy thou art,
He who of old on Syria's mount
Thrill'd, warm'd by turns the listener's heart. In holy words which cannot die,
In thoughts which angels lean'd to know, Proclaim'd thy message from on highThy mission to a world of wo. That voice's echo hath not died! From the blue lake of Galilee, And Tabor's lonely mountain side, It calls a struggling world to thee. Thy name and watchword o'er this land I hear in every breeze that stirs, And round a thousand altars stand Thy banded party worshippers. Not to these altars of a day,
At party's call, my gift I bring;
But on thy olden shrine I lay
A freeman's dearest offering:
The voiceless utterance of his will-
His pledge to freedom and to truth,
That manhood's heart remembers still
The homage of its generous youth.
THE CYPRESS TREE OF CEYLON."
THEY sat in silent watchfulness
The sacred cypress tree about,
And from the wrinkled brows of age
Their failing eyes look'd out.
Gray age and sickness waiting there,
Through weary night and lingering day,
Grim as the idols at their side,
And motionless as they.
Unheeded, in the boughs above,
The song of Ceylon's birds was sweet; Unseen of them the island's flowers
Bloom'd brightly at their feet.
O'er them the tropic night-storm swept,
The thunder crash'd on rock and hill,
The lightning wrapp'd them like a cloud,—
Yet there they waited still!
What was the world without to them?
The Moslem's sunset call-the dance Of Ceylon's maids-the passing gleam Of battle-flag and lance?
They waited for that falling leaf
Of which the wandering Jogees sing, Which lends once more to wintry age
The greenness of its spring.
O! if these poor and blinded ones
In trustful patience wait to feel
O'er torpid pulse and failing limb
A youthful freshness steal:
Shall we, who sit beneath that tree
Whose healing leaves of life are shed
In answer to the breath of prayer,
Upon the waiting head:
Not to restore our failing forms,
Nor build the spirit's broken shrine, But on the fainting soul to shed
A light and life divine:
Shall we grow weary at our watch,
And murmur at the long delay,-
Impatient of our Father's time,
And his appointed way?
Or shall the stir of outward things
Allure and claim the Christian's eye,
When on the heathen watcher's ear
Their powerless murmurs die?
Alas! a deeper test of faith
Than prison-cell or martyr's stake,
The self-abasing watchfulness
Of silent prayer may make.
We gird us bravely to rebuke
Our erring brother in the wrong; And in the ear of pride and power Our warning voice is strong.
IBN BATUTA, the celebrated Mussulman traveller of the fourteenth century, speaks of a cypress tree in Ceylon, universally held sacred by the inhabitants, the leaves of which were said to fall only at long and uncertain periods; and he who had the happiness to find and eat one of them was restored at once to youth and vigour. The traveller saw several venerable Jogees, or saints, sitting silent under the tree, patiently waiting the fall of a leaf.
Easier to smite with PETER's sword,
Than "watch one hour" in humbling prayer; Life's "great things," like the Syrian lord, Our souls can do and dare.
But, O, we shrink from Jordan's side,
From waters which alone can save;
And murmur for Abana's banks,
And Pharpar's brighter wave.
O! Thou who in the garden's shade
Didst wake thy weary ones again,
Who slumber'd in that fearful hour,
Forgetful of thy pain:
Bend o'er us now, as over them,
And set our sleep-bound spirits free, Nor leave us slumbering in the watch Our souls should keep with thee!
THE Ocean looketh up to heaven,
As 't were a living thing;
The homage of its waves is given
In ceaseless worshipping.
They kneel upon the sloping sand,
As bends the human knee,
A beautiful and tireless band,
The priesthood of the sea!
They pour the glittering treasures out
Which in the deep have birth,
And chant their awful hymns about
The watching hills of earth.
The green earth sends its incense up
From every mountain-shrine,
From every flower and dewy cup
That greeteth the sunshine.
The mists are lifted from the rills,
Like the white wing of prayer;
They lean above the ancient hills,
As doing homage there.
The forest-tops are lowly cast
O'er breezy hill and glen,
As if a prayerful spirit pass'd
On nature as on men.
The clouds weep o'er the fallen world,
E'en as repentant love;
Ere, to the blessed breeze unfurl'd,
They fade in light above.
The sky is as a temple's arch,
The blue and wavy air
Is glorious with the spirit-march
Of messengers at prayer.
The gentle moon, the kindling sun,
The many stars are given,
As shrines to burn earth's incense on,
The altar-fires of Heaven!
"It hath beene as it were especially rendered unto mee, and made plaine and legible to my understandynge, that a great worshipp is going on among the thyngs of God."GRALT.
THE FUNERAL TREE OF THE
SOKOKIS.*
AROUND Sebago's lonely lake
There lingers not a breeze to break
The mirror which its waters make.
The solemn pines along its shore,
The firs which hang its gray rocks o'er,
Are painted on its glassy floor.
The sun looks o'er, with hazy eye,
The snowy mountain-tops which lie
Piled coldly up against the sky.
Dazzling and white! save where the bleak,
Wild winds have bared some splintering peak,
Or snow-slide left its dusky streak.
Yet green are Saco's banks below,
And belts of spruce and cedar show,
Dark fringing round those cones of snow.
The earth hath felt the breath of spring,
Though yet upon her tardy wing
The lingering frosts of winter cling.
Fresh grasses fringe the meadow-brooks,
And mildly from its sunny nooks
The blue eye of the violet looks.
And odours from the springing grass,
The sweet birch, and the sassafras,
Upon the scarce-felt breezes pass.
Her tokens of renewing care
Hath Nature scatter'd everywhere,
In bud and flower, and warmer air.
But in their hour of bitterness,
What reck the broken Sokokis,
Beside their slaughter'd chief, of this?
The turf's red stain is yet undried—
Scarce have the death-shot echoes died
Along Sebago's wooded side:
And silent now the hunters stand,
Group'd darkly, where a swell of land
Slopes upward from the lake's white sand.
Fire and the axe have swept it bare,
Save one lone beech, unclosing there
Its light leaves in the April air.
With grave, cold looks, all sternly mute,
They break the damp turf at its foot,
And bare its coil'd and twisted root.
They heave the stubborn trunk aside,
The firm roots from the earth divide-
The rent beneath yawns dark and wide.
And there the fallen chief is laid,
In tassell'd garb of skins array'd,
And girdled with his wampum-braid.
POLAN, a chief of the Sokokis Indians, the original inhabitants of the country lying between Agamenticus and Casco bay, was killed in a skirmish at Windham, on the Sebago lake, in the spring of 1756. He claimed all the lands on both sides of the Presumpscot river to its mouth at Casco, as his own. He was shrewd, subtle, and brave. After the white men had retired, the surviving Indians "swayed" or bent down a young tree until its roots were turned up, placed the body of their chief beneath them, and then released the tree to spring back to its former position.
The silver cross he loved is press'd
Beneath the heavy arms, which rest
Upon his scarr'd and naked breast.*
"Tis done: the roots are backward sent,
The beechen tree stands up unbent-
The Indian's fitting monument!
When of that sleeper's broken race
Their green and pleasant dwelling-place
Which knew them once, retains no trace;
O! long may sunset's light be shed
As now upon that beech's head-
A green memorial of the dead!
There shall his fitting requiem be,
In northern winds, that, cold and free,
Howl nightly in that funeral tree.
To their wild wail the waves which break
Forever round that lonely lake
A solemn under-tone shall make!
And who shall deem the spot unblest,
Where Nature's younger children rest,
Lull'd on their sorrowing mother's breast?
Deem ye that mother loveth less
These bronzed forms of the wilderness
She foldeth in her long caress?
As sweet o'er them her wild flowers flow,
As if with fairer hair and brow
The blue-eyed Saxon slept below.
What though the places of their rest
No priestly knee hath ever press'd-
No funeral rite nor prayer hath bless'd?
What though the bigot's ban be there,
And thoughts of wailing and despair,
And cursing in the place of prayer!t
Yet Heaven hath angels watching round
The Indian's lowliest forest-mound-
And they have made it holy ground.
There ceases man's frail judgment; all
His powerless bolts of cursing fall
Unheeded on that grassy pall.
O, peel'd, and hunted, and reviled!
Sleep on, dark tenant of the wild!
Great Nature owns her simple child!
And Nature's Gon, to whom alone
The secret of the heart is known-
The hidden language traced thereon;
Who, from its many cumberings
Of form and creed, and outward things,
To light the naked spirit brings;
Not with our partial eye shall scan-
Not with our pride and scorn shall ban
The spirit of our brother man!
The Sokokis were early converts to the Catholic faith. Most of them, prior to the year 1756, had removed to the French settlements on the St. Francois.
The brutal and unchristian spirit of the early settlers of New England toward the red man is strikingly illustrated in the conduct of the man who shot down the Sokokis chief. He used to say he always noticed the anniversary of that exploit, as "the day on which he sent the devil a present."-WILLIAMSON'S History of Maine.
I SHALL not soon forget that sight:
The glow of autumn's westering day,
A hazy warmth, a dreamy light,
On Raphael's picture lay.
It was a simple print I saw,
The fair face of a musing boy; Yet while I gazed a sense of awe Seem'd blending with my joy.
A simple print: the graceful flow
Of boyhood's soft and wavy hair, And fresh young lip and check, and brow
Unmark'd and clear, were there.
Yet through its sweet and calm repose
I saw the inward spirit shine;
It was as if before me rose
The white veil of a shrine.
As if, as Gothland's sage has told,
The hidden life, the man within, Dissever'd from its frame and mould, By mortal eye were seen.
Was it the lifting of that eye,
The waving of that pictured hand?
Loose as a cloud-wreath on the sky
I saw the walls expand.
The narrow room had vanish'd-space
Broad, luminous, remain'd alone,
Through which all hues and shapes of grace
And beauty look'd or shone.
Around the mighty master came
The marvels which his pencil wrought,
Those miracles of power whose fame
Is wide as human thought.
There droop'd thy more than mortal face,
O Mother, beautiful and mild!
Enfolding in one dear embrace
Thy Saviour and thy child!
The rapt brow of the Desert John;
The awful glory of that day
When all the Father's brightness shone
Through manhood's veil of clay.
And, midst gray prophet forms, and wild
Dark visions of the days of old,
How sweetly woman's beauty smiled
Through locks of brown and gold!
There Fornarina's fair young face
Once more upon her lover shone,
Whose model of an angel's grace
He borrow'd from her own.
Slow pass'd that vision from my view,
But not the lesson which it taught;
The soft, calm shadows which it threw
Still rested on my thought:
The truth, that painter, bard and sage,
Even in earth's cold and changeful clime,
Plant for their deathless heritage
The fruits and flowers of time.
We shape ourselves the joy or fear
Of which the coming life is made, And fill our future's atmosphere With sunshine or with shade.
The tissue of the life to be
We weave with colours all our own, And in the field of destiny
We reap as we have sown.
Still shall the soul around it call
The shadows which it gather'd here,
And painted on the eternal wall
The past shall reappear.
Think ye the notes of holy song
On Milton's tuneful ear have died? Think ye that Raphael's angel throng Has vanish'd from his side?
Oh no!-we live our life again:
Or warmly touch'd or coldly dim The pictures of the past remain.Man's works shall follow him!
A BEAUTIFUL and happy girl
With step as soft as summer air, And fresh young lip and brow of pearl Shadow'd by many a careless curl
Of unconfined and flowing hair:
A seeming child in every thing
Save thoughtful brow, and ripening charms, As nature wears the smile of spring When sinking into summer's arms.
A mind rejoicing in the light
Which melted through its graceful bower, Leaf after leaf serenely bright. And stainless in its holy white
Unfolding like a morning flower:
A heart, which, like a fine-toned lute
With every breath of feeling woke,
And, even when the tongue was mute,
From eye and lip in music spoke.
How thrills once more the lengthening chain
Of memory at the thought of thee!-
Old hopes which long in dust have lain,
Old dreams come thronging back again,
And boyhood lives again in me;
I feel its glow upon my cheek,
Its fulness of the heart is mine,
As when I lean'd to hear thee speak,
Or raised my doubtful eye to thine.
I hear again thy low replies,
I feel thy arm within my own,
And timidly again uprise
The fringed lids of hazel eyes
With soft brown tresses overblown.
Ah! memories of sweet summer eves,
Of moonlit wave and willowy way, Of stars and flowers and dewy leaves, And smiles and tones more dear than they!
Ere this thy quiet eye hath smiled
My picture of thy youth to see,
When half a woman, half a child,
Thy very artlessness beguiled,
And folly's self seem'd wise in thee.
I too can smile, when o'er that hour
The lights of memory backward stream,
Yet feel the while that manhood's power
Is vainer than my boyhood's dream.
Years have pass'd on, and left their trace
Of graver care and deeper thought;
And unto me the calm, cold face
Of manhood, and to thee the grace
Of woman's pensive beauty brought,
On life's rough blasts for blame or praise
The schoolboy's name has widely flown;
Thine in the green and quiet ways
Of unobtrusive goodness known. And wider yet in thought and deed
Our still diverging thoughts incline, Thine the Genevan's sternest creed, While answers to my spirit's need
The Yorkshire peasant's simple line. For thee the priestly rite and prayer, And holy day and solemn psalm, For me the silent reverence where
My brethren gather, slow and calm.
Yet hath thy spirit left on me
An impress time has not worn out,
And something of myself in thee,
A shadow from the past, I see
Lingering even yet thy way about;
Not wholly can the heart unlearn
That lesson of its better hours,
Not yet has Time's dull footstep worn
To common dust that path of flowers.
Thus, while at times before our eye
The clouds about the present part,
And, smiling through them, round us lie
Soft hues of memory's morning sky-
The Indian summer of the heart,
In secret sympathies of mind,
In founts of feeling which retain
Their pure, fresh flow, we yet may find
Our early dreams not wholly vain!
TO A FRIEND,
ON HER RETURN FROM EUROPE.
How smiled the land of France
Under thy blue eye's glance,
Light-hearted rover!
Old walls of chateaux gray,
Towers of an early day
Which the three colours play
Flauntingly over.
Now midst the orilliant train Thronging the banks of Seine:
Now midst the splendour
Of the wild Alpine range,
Waking with change on change
Thoughts in thy young heart strange,
Lovely and tender.
Vales, soft, Elysian,
Like those in the vision
Of Mirza, when, dreaming,
He saw the long hollow dell
Touch'd by the prophet's spell
Into an ocean's swell
With its isles teeming.
Cliffs wrapt in snows of years,
Splintering with icy spears
Autumn's blue heaven:
Loose rock and frozen slide,
Hung on the mountain side,
Waiting their hour to glide
Downward, storm-driven !
Rhine stream, by castle old
Baron's and robber's hold,
Peacefully flowing;
Sweeping through vineyards green,
Or where the cliffs are seen
O'er the broad wave between
Grim shadows throwing.
Or, where St. Peter's dome
Swells o'er eternal Rome
Vast, dim, and solemn,—
Hymns ever chanting low-
Censers swung to and fro-
Sable stoles sweeping slow
Cornice and column!
Oh, as from each and all
Will there not voices call
Evermore back again?
In the mind's gallery
Wilt thou not ever see
Dim phantoms beckon thee
O'er that old track again?
New forms thy presence haunt-
New voices softly chant-
New faces greet thee!—
Pilgrims from many a shrine
Hallow'd by poet's line
At memory's magic sign
Rising to meet thee.
And when such visions come
Unto thy olden home,
Will they not waken
Deep thoughts of Him whose hand
Led thee o'er sea and land
Back to the household band
Whence thou wast taken?
While at the sunset time,
Swells the cathedral's chime,
Yet, in thy dreaming,
While to thy spirit's eye
Yet the vast mountain's lie
Piled in the Switzer's sky,
Icy and gleaming:
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