Let age lament the youthful chief, And tender eyes be dim; The tears are more of joy than grief That fall for one like him!
1878.
BAYARD TAYLOR.
I.
"And where now, Bayard, will thy footsteps tend?"
My sister asked our guest one winter's day.
Smiling he answered in the Friends' sweet way Common to both: "Wherever thou shall send!
What wouldst thou have me see for thee?" She laughed, Her dark eyes dancing in the wood-fire's glow "Loffoden isles, the Kilpis, and the low, Unsetting sun on Finmark's fishing-craft."
"All these and more I soon shall see for thee!"
He answered cheerily: and he kept his pledge On Lapland snows, the North Cape's windy wedge, And Tromso freezing in its winter sea.
He went and came. But no man knows the track Of his last journey, and he comes not back!
II.
He brought us wonders of the new and old; We shared all climes with him. The Arab's tent To him its story-telling secret lent.
And, pleased, we listened to the tales he told.
His task, beguiled with songs that shall endure, In manly, honest thoroughness he wrought; From humble home-lays to the heights of thought Slowly he climbed, but every step was sure.
How, with the generous pride that friendship hath, We, who so loved him, saw at last the crown Of civic honor on his brows pressed down, Rejoiced, and knew not that the gift was death.
And now for him, whose praise in deafened ears Two nations speak, we answer but with tears!
III.
O Vale of Chester! trod by him so oft, Green as thy June turf keep his memory. Let Nor wood, nor dell, nor storied stream forget, Nor winds that blow round lonely Cedarcroft; Let the home voices greet him in the far, Strange land that holds him; let the messages Of love pursue him o'er the chartless seas And unmapped vastness of his unknown star Love's language, heard beyond the loud discourse Of perishable fame, in every sphere Itself interprets; and its utterance here Somewhere in God's unfolding universe Shall reach our traveller, softening the surprise Of his rapt gaze on unfamiliar skies!
1879.
OUR AUTOCRAT.
Read at the breakfast given in honor of Dr. Holmes by the publishers of the Atlantic Monthly, December 3, 1879.
His laurels fresh from song and lay, Romance, art, science, rich in all, And young of heart, how dare we say We keep his seventieth festival?
No sense is here of loss or lack; Before his sweetness and his light The dial holds its shadow back, The charmed hours delay their flight.
His still the keen analysis Of men and moods, electric wit, Free play of mirth, and tenderness To heal the slightest wound from it.
And his the pathos touching all Life's sins and sorrows and regrets, Its hopes and fears, its final call And rest beneath the violets.
His sparkling surface scarce betrays The thoughtful tide beneath it rolled, The wisdom of the latter days, And tender memories of the old.
What shapes and fancies, grave or gay, Before us at his bidding come The Treadmill tramp, the One-Horse Shay, The dumb despair of Elsie's doom!
The tale of Avis and the Maid, The plea for lips that cannot speak, The holy kiss that Iris laid On Little Boston's pallid cheek!
Long may he live to sing for us His sweetest songs at evening time, And, like his Chambered Nautilus, To holier heights of beauty climb,
Though now unnumbered guests surround The table that he rules at will, Its Autocrat, however crowned, Is but our friend and comrade still.
The world may keep his honored name, The wealth of all his varied powers; A stronger claim has love than fame, And he himself is only ours!
WITHIN THE GATE. L. M. C.
I have more fully expressed my admiration and regard for Lydia Maria Child in the biographical introduction which I wrote for the volume of Letters, published after her death.
We sat together, last May-day, and talked Of the dear friends who walked Beside us, sharers of the hopes and fears Of five and forty years,
Since first we met in Freedom's hope forlorn, And heard her battle-horn Sound through the valleys of the sleeping North, Calling her children forth,
And youth pressed forward with hope-lighted eyes, And age, with forecast wise Of the long strife before the triumph won, Girded his armor on.
Sadly, ass name by name we called the roll, We heard the dead-bells toll For the unanswering many, and we knew The living were the few.
And we, who waited our own call before The inevitable door, Listened and looked, as all have done, to win Some token from within.
No sign we saw, we heard no voices call; The impenetrable wall Cast down its shadow, like an awful doubt, On all who sat without.
Of many a hint of life beyond the veil, And many a ghostly tale Wherewith the ages spanned the gulf between The seen and the unseen,
Seeking from omen, trance, and dream to gain Solace to doubtful pain, And touch, with groping hands, the garment hem Of truth sufficing them,
We talked; and, turning from the sore unrest Of an all-baffling quest, We thought of holy lives that from us passed Hopeful unto the last,
As if they saw beyond the river of death, Like Him of Nazareth, The many mansions of the Eternal days Lift up their gates of praise.
And, hushed to silence by a reverent awe, Methought, O friend, I saw In thy true life of word, and work, and thought The proof of all we sought.
Did we not witness in the life of thee Immortal prophecy?
And feel, when with thee, that thy footsteps trod An everlasting road?
Not for brief days thy generous sympathies, Thy scorn of selfish ease; Not for the poor prize of an earthly goal Thy strong uplift of soul.
Than thine was never turned a fonder heart To nature and to art In fair-formed Hellas in her golden prime, Thy Philothea's time.
Yet, loving beauty, thou couldst pass it by, And for the poor deny Thyself, and see thy fresh, sweet flower of fame Wither in blight and blame.
Sharing His love who holds in His embrace The lowliest of our race, Sure the Divine economy must be Conservative of thee!
For truth must live with truth, self-sacrifice Seek out its great allies; Good must find good by gravitation sure, And love with love endure.