DEDICATION.
Prefixed to the volume of which the group of six poems following this prelude constituted the first portion.
I WOULD the gift I offer here Might graces from thy favor take, And, seen through Friendship's atmosphere, On softened lines and coloring, wear The unaccustomed light of beauty, for thy sake.
Few leaves of Fancy's spring remain But what I have I give to thee, The o'er-sunned bloom of summer's plain, And paler flowers, the latter rain Calls from the westering slope of life's autumnal lea.
Above the fallen groves of green, Where youth's enchanted forest stood, Dry root and mossed trunk between, A sober after-growth is seen, As springs the pine where falls the gay-leafed maple wood!
Yet birds will sing, and breezes play Their leaf-harps in the sombre tree; And through the bleak and wintry day It keeps its steady green alway,-- So, even my after-thoughts may have a charm for thee.
Art's perfect forms no moral need, And beauty is its own excuse; But for the dull and flowerless weed Some healing virtue still must plead, And the rough ore must find its honors in its use.
So haply these, my simple lays Of homely toil, may serve to show The orchard bloom and tasselled maize That skirt and gladden duty's ways, The unsung beauty hid life's common things below.
Haply from them the toiler, bent Above his forge or plough, may gain, A manlier spirit of content, And feel that life is wisest spent Where the strong working hand makes strong the working brain.
The doom which to the guilty pair Without the walls of Eden came, Transforming sinless ease to care And rugged toil, no more shall bear The burden of old crime, or mark of primal shame.
A blessing now, a curse no more; Since He, whose name we breathe with awe, The coarse mechanic vesture wore, A poor man toiling with the poor, In labor, as in prayer, fulfilling the same law.
1850.
THE SHOEMAKERS.
Ho! workers of the old time styled The Gentle Craft of Leather Young brothers of the ancient guild, Stand forth once more together!
Call out again your long array, In the olden merry manner Once more, on gay St. Crispin's day, Fling out your blazoned banner!
Rap, rap! upon the well-worn stone How falls the polished hammer Rap, rap I the measured sound has grown A quick and merry clamor.
Now shape the sole! now deftly curl The glossy vamp around it, And bless the while the bright-eyed girl Whose gentle fingers bound it!
For you, along the Spanish main A hundred keels are ploughing; For you, the Indian on the plain His lasso-coil is throwing; For you, deep glens with hemlock dark The woodman's fire is lighting; For you, upon the oak's gray bark, The woodman's axe is smiting.
For you, from Carolina's pine The rosin-gum is stealing; For you, the dark-eyed Florentine Her silken skein is reeling; For you, the dizzy goatherd roams His rugged Alpine ledges; For you, round all her shepherd homes, Bloom England's thorny hedges.
The foremost still, by day or night, On moated mound or heather, Where'er the need of trampled right Brought toiling men together; Where the free burghers from the wall Defied the mail-clad master, Than yours, at Freedom's trumpet-call, No craftsmen rallied faster.
Let foplings sneer, let fools deride, Ye heed no idle scorner; Free hands and hearts are still your pride, And duty done, your honor.
Ye dare to trust, for honest fame, The jury Time empanels, And leave to truth each noble name Which glorifies your annals.
Thy songs, Hans Sachs, are living yet, In strong and hearty German; And Bloomfield's lay, and Gifford's wit, And patriot fame of Sherman; Still from his book, a mystic seer, The soul of Behmen teaches, And England's priestcraft shakes to hear Of Fox's leathern breeches.
The foot is yours; where'er it falls, It treads your well-wrought leather, On earthen floor, in marble halls, On carpet, or on heather.
Still there the sweetest charm is found Of matron grace or vestal's, As Hebe's foot bore nectar round Among the old celestials.
Rap, rap!--your stout and bluff brogan, With footsteps slow and weary, May wander where the sky's blue span Shuts down upon the prairie.
On Beauty's foot your slippers glance, By Saratoga's fountains, Or twinkle down the summer dance Beneath the Crystal Mountains!
The red brick to the mason's hand, The brown earth to the tiller's, The shoe in yours shall wealth command, Like fairy Cinderella's!
As they who shunned the household maid Beheld the crown upon her, So all shall see your toil repaid With hearth and home and honor.
Then let the toast be freely quaffed, In water cool and brimming,-- "All honor to the good old Craft, Its merry men and women!"
Call out again your long array, In the old time's pleasant manner Once more, on gay St. Crispin's day, Fling out his blazoned banner!
1845.
THE FISHERMEN.
HURRAH! the seaward breezes Sweep down the bay amain; Heave up, my lads, the anchor!
Run up the sail again Leave to the lubber landsmen The rail-car and the steed; The stars of heaven shall guide us, The breath of heaven shall speed.
From the hill-top looks the steeple, And the lighthouse from the sand; And the scattered pines are waving Their farewell from the land.
One glance, my lads, behind us, For the homes we leave one sigh, Ere we take the change and chances Of the ocean and the sky.
Now, brothers, for the icebergs Of frozen Labrador, Floating spectral in the moonshine, Along the low, black shore!
Where like snow the gannet's feathers On Brador's rocks are shed, And the noisy murr are flying, Like black scuds, overhead;
Where in mist tie rock is hiding, And the sharp reef lurks below, And the white squall smites in summer, And the autumn tempests blow; Where, through gray and rolling vapor, From evening unto morn, A thousand boats are hailing, Horn answering unto horn.
Hurrah! for the Red Island, With the white cross on its crown Hurrah! for Meccatina, And its mountains bare and brown!
Where the Caribou's tall antlers O'er the dwarf-wood freely toss, And the footstep of the Mickmack Has no sound upon the moss.
There we'll drop our lines, and gather Old Ocean's treasures in, Where'er the mottled mackerel Turns up a steel-dark fin.
The sea's our field of harvest, Its scaly tribes our grain; We'll reap the teeming waters As at home they reap the plain.
Our wet hands spread the carpet, And light the hearth of home; From our fish, as in the old time, The silver coin shall come.
As the demon fled the chamber Where the fish of Tobit lay, So ours from all our dwellings Shall frighten Want away.
Though the mist upon our jackets In the bitter air congeals, And our lines wind stiff and slowly From off the frozen reels; Though the fog be dark around us, And the storm blow high and loud, We will whistle down the wild wind, And laugh beneath the cloud!
In the darkness as in daylight, On the water as on land, God's eye is looking on us, And beneath us is His hand!
Death will find us soon or later, On the deck or in the cot; And we cannot meet him better Than in working out our lot.
Hurrah! hurrah! the west-wind Comes freshening down the bay, The rising sails are filling; Give way, my lads, give way!
Leave the coward landsman clinging To the dull earth, like a weed; The stars of heaven shall guide us, The breath of heaven shall speed!
1845.