WILLIAM FORSTER.
William Forster, of Norwich, England, died in East Tennessee, in the 1st month, 1854, while engaged in presenting to the governors of the States of this Union the address of his religious society on the evils of slavery. He was the relative and coadjutor of the Buxtons, Gurneys, and Frys; and his whole life, extending al-most to threescore and ten years, was a pore and beautiful example of Christian benevolence. He had travelled over Europe, and visited most of its sovereigns, to plead against the slave-trade and slavery; and had twice before made visits to this country, under impressions of religious duty. He was the father of the Right Hon. William Edward Forster. He visited my father's house in Haverhill during his first tour in the United States.
The years are many since his hand Was laid upon my head, Too weak and young to understand The serious words he said.
Yet often now the good man's look Before me seems to swim, As if some inward feeling took The outward guise of him.
As if, in passion's heated war, Or near temptation's charm, Through him the low-voiced monitor Forewarned me of the harm.
Stranger and pilgrim! from that day Of meeting, first and last, Wherever Duty's pathway lay, His reverent steps have passed.
The poor to feed, the lost to seek, To proffer life to death, Hope to the erring,--to the weak The strength of his own faith.
To plead the captive's right; remove The sting of hate from Law; And soften in the fire of love The hardened steel of War.
He walked the dark world, in the mild, Still guidance of the Light; In tearful tenderness a child, A strong man in the right.
From what great perils, on his way, He found, in prayer, release; Through what abysmal shadows lay His pathway unto peace,
God knoweth: we could only see The tranquil strength he gained; The bondage lost in liberty, The fear in love unfeigned.
And I,--my youthful fancies grown The habit of the man, Whose field of life by angels sown The wilding vines o'erran,--
Low bowed in silent gratitude, My manhood's heart enjoys That reverence for the pure and good Which blessed the dreaming boy's.
Still shines the light of holy lives Like star-beams over doubt; Each sainted memory, Christlike, drives Some dark possession out.
O friend! O brother I not in vain Thy life so calm and true, The silver dropping of the rain, The fall of summer dew!
How many burdened hearts have prayed Their lives like thine might be But more shall pray henceforth for aid To lay them down like thee.
With weary hand, yet steadfast will, In old age as in youth, Thy Master found thee sowing still The good seed of His truth.
As on thy task-field closed the day In golden-skied decline, His angel met thee on the way, And lent his arm to thine.
Thy latest care for man,--thy last Of earthly thought a prayer,-- Oh, who thy mantle, backward cast, Is worthy now to wear?
Methinks the mound which marks thy bed Might bless our land and save, As rose, of old, to life the dead Who touched the prophet's grave
1854.
TO CHARLES SUMNER.
If I have seemed more prompt to censure wrong Than praise the right; if seldom to thine ear My voice hath mingled with the exultant cheer Borne upon all our Northern winds along; If I have failed to join the fickle throng In wide-eyed wonder, that thou standest strong In victory, surprised in thee to find Brougham's scathing power with Canning's grace combined; That he, for whom the ninefold Muses sang, From their twined arms a giant athlete sprang, Barbing the arrows of his native tongue With the spent shafts Latona's archer flung, To smite the Python of our land and time, Fell as the monster born of Crissa's slime, Like the blind bard who in Castalian springs Tempered the steel that clove the crest of kings, And on the shrine of England's freedom laid The gifts of Cumve and of Delphi's' shade,-- Small need hast thou of words of praise from me.
Thou knowest my heart, dear friend, and well canst guess That, even though silent, I have not the less Rejoiced to see thy actual life agree With the large future which I shaped for thee, When, years ago, beside the summer sea, White in the moon, we saw the long waves fall Baffled and broken from the rocky wall, That, to the menace of the brawling flood, Opposed alone its massive quietude, Calm as a fate; with not a leaf nor vine Nor birch-spray trembling in the still moonshine, Crowning it like God's peace. I sometimes think That night-scene by the sea prophetical, (For Nature speaks in symbols and in signs, And through her pictures human fate divines), That rock, wherefrom we saw the billows sink In murmuring rout, uprising clear and tall In the white light of heaven, the type of one Who, momently by Error's host assailed, Stands strong as Truth, in greaves of granite mailed; And, tranquil-fronted, listening over all The tumult, hears the angels say, Well done!
1854.
BURNS, ON RECEIVING A SPRIG OF HEATHER IN BLOSSOM.
No more these simple flowers belong To Scottish maid and lover; Sown in the common soil of song, They bloom the wide world over.
In smiles and tears, in sun and showers, The minstrel and the heather, The deathless singer and the flowers He sang of live together.
Wild heather-bells and Robert Burns The moorland flower and peasant!
How, at their mention, memory turns Her pages old and pleasant!
The gray sky wears again its gold And purple of adorning, And manhood's noonday shadows hold The dews of boyhood's morning.
The dews that washed the dust and soil From off the wings of pleasure, The sky, that flecked the ground of toil With golden threads of leisure.
I call to mind the summer day, The early harvest mowing, The sky with sun and clouds at play, And flowers with breezes blowing.
I hear the blackbird in the corn, The locust in the haying; And, like the fabled hunter's horn, Old tunes my heart is playing.
How oft that day, with fond delay, I sought the maple's shadow, And sang with Burns the hours away, Forgetful of the meadow.
Bees hummed, birds twittered, overhead I heard the squirrels leaping, The good dog listened while I read, And wagged his tail in keeping.
I watched him while in sportive mood I read "_The Twa Dogs_" story, And half believed he understood The poet's allegory.
Sweet day, sweet songs! The golden hours Grew brighter for that singing, From brook and bird and meadow flowers A dearer welcome bringing.
New light on home-seen Nature beamed, New glory over Woman; And daily life and duty seemed No longer poor and common.
I woke to find the simple truth Of fact and feeling better Than all the dreams that held my youth A still repining debtor,
That Nature gives her handmaid, Art, The themes of sweet discoursing; The tender idyls of the heart In every tongue rehearsing.
Why dream of lands of gold and pearl, Of loving knight and lady, When farmer boy and barefoot girl Were wandering there already?
I saw through all familiar things The romance underlying; The joys and griefs that plume the wings Of Fancy skyward flying.
I saw the same blithe day return, The same sweet fall of even, That rose on wooded Craigie-burn, And sank on crystal Devon.
I matched with Scotland's heathery hills The sweetbrier and the clover; With Ayr and Doon, my native rills, Their wood-hymns chanting over.
O'er rank and pomp, as he had seen, I saw the Man uprising; No longer common or unclean, The child of God's baptizing!
With clearer eyes I saw the worth Of life among the lowly; The Bible at his Cotter's hearth Had made my own more holy.